


Winner Takes All

by Rizobact



Series: Festival of the Five [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Barricade isn't much better, Canon-Typical Violence, Festival of the FIve, Lockdown isn't very nice, M/M, OC casualties, Pining, Sexual Harassment, evil plotting schemey dicks, stalker character, stalkery behavior, underhanded tactics, unhealthy work environment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-04-14 23:01:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 60,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4583418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizobact/pseuds/Rizobact
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Festival of the Five has come around again on Cybertron - it's time for the Challenge of Adaptus and Lockdown is determined to be the Champion and claim Prowl as his mate, regardless of Prowl's feelings on the matter. When Jazz finds out what the bounty hunter has planned he enters the race to stop him, and maybe win the chance to confess his own feelings to his long-time friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This all takes place in an AU based on a discussion [here](http://iopele.tumblr.com/post/126789434877/festival-of-the-five-masterpost) on tumblr.
> 
> I'm making the assumption that the war never happened and drawing on a couple different continuities for the characters. Basically the idea is every 50 vorns Cybertron holds a different race/contest in honor of one of the members of the Guiding Hand as part of the Festival of the Five, and the winner gets to claim whoever they want as their mate at the end (with a few caveats, because consent is important!). The Challenge of Adaptus is a no-holds barred obstacle-course style race where the title of Champion is awarded to whoever finishes the course with the best time, so the rating is largely for language and violence in that part of the story, as well as Lockdown being a disgusting creep.
> 
> This will be my first full-length completed story - thank you so much to everyone on tumblr and especially 4thelurvofnerds for helping with the title, the beta, and for pushing the Kool Aid my way in the first place XD I really appreciate the encouragement to take the plunge and join the party!

It was really unfair, Jazz decided, glancing from the drink in his hand to the latest Festival update on the vidscreen above the bar. Once again it was time to celebrate the Festival of the Five in honor of the Guiding Hand, and all of Praxus was gearing up for the additional honor of hosting the Challenge of Adaptus. Decorations were going up everywhere, accommodations were being made for the expected influx of visitors and dignitaries coming for the festivities, and the racecourse for the Challenge itself was in its final stages of preparation.

All this excitement had mechs and femmes in such high spirits that even with the official Festival still two days away, impromptu parties and unofficial celebrations were springing up all over the city. But despite the pervasiveness of all that energy and good cheer, which would have normally been an ideal atmosphere for an entertainer like himself, Jazz could not seem to get into the groove, and that just wasn’t fair.

The femme on the vidscreen was currently reporting on the recent arrival of several important mechs that morning. The Prime himself was not due to arrive until the following day, but many of the Senators and other officials were already making their appearances. Jazz would normally be watching with his friends, critiquing their paint schemes and running scathing commentary about the state of modern fashion. They’d even gone so far as to try to set their own fashion trend as a joke, convincing a whole district in Kaon that every mech in Praxus wore a visor when their group had gone there to perform during the last Festival.

That actually hadn’t been Jazz’s idea, although he was the reason Blaster had suggested it. Each of them had gotten a non-functional cosmetic visor as part of their costume armor for the theme of the Challenge of Mortilus and had worn them everywhere, even when they weren’t performing. It had been a lot of fun, especially since Beatbox hadn’t thought her choice of color through very well and had been continually bumping into things she couldn’t make out fully through the deep maroon visor she had selected in contrast to her lighter plating.

From his solitary seat at the bar, Jazz could hear them right now, happily plotting away at a nearby table to come up with a prank to top that one. He glanced back at them over his shoulder briefly before returning his attention to his triple engex blend with cadmium. It was a heavier drink than his usual fare, but it fit the heavy mood he couldn’t seem to shake. He knew if he didn’t join the rest of the troupe soon they were bound to call him on his lack of enthusiasm. So far they hadn’t said anything, but Jazz knew he was getting less and less successful at hiding his melancholy the closer the Festival got. In fact, he probably only had a few minutes at most to finish his drink and get up and be social before one of them decided to be helpful and came over to ask –

“What’s wrong, mech? Why’re you sittin’ here all by yourself?” Blaster’s timely question intruded on his thoughts as the red and yellow host appeared to lean against the bar counter next to him.

Caught off guard, Jazz tried flashing a quick grin up at the larger mech. “Nothin’s wrong, why you ask?” He raised his glass and took a drink in an effort to mask a flinch at how weak that had come out.

Blaster wasn’t fooled in the slightest. “I might believe that, if I didn’t know you as well as I do,” he said, pulling up a stool and sitting down next to the black and white dancer. “You haven’t been your usual cheerful self and we’ve been startin’ to worry.” He frowned and continued when it looked like Jazz was about to try to wave him off again. “It’s no use tryin’ to hide it, mech – you’ve been quieter than usual the last couple of days and now you’re just sittin’ here, lettin’ Switchstep do all the work comin’ up with the new routine while you drown your sorrows in engex.”

“Wasn’t tryin’ to hide anything,” Jazz said. “Just tryin’ to turn myself around without raining on everyone’s good mood.”

For a long moment Blaster didn’t respond, and Jazz was beginning to worry he’d somehow offended him when he finally spoke again. “This is about Prowl, isn’t it?”

“Well, maybe I miss him a little, him being so busy with the Festival and all,” Jazz admitted. “Probably won’t get a chance to see him till it’s over actually, but I expected that, it’s no big deal. Same thing happened at the last Festival. What makes you think that’s the problem?”

Blaster fixed Jazz with a look. “I think this is about more than missin’ your friend,” he said, sounding almost apologetic as he continued. “You’re not just sad you can’t celebrate the Festival together. I think you’re wishin’ the Festival could be celebratin’ the two of you.”

“Now hold up, that ain’t – “

“Jazz, I _know_. I know you been crushin’ on him since before the Challenge o’ Mortilus, and I saw how you were lookin’ at him during the Champion’s Bonding Ceremony then. Never figured you for the type to get serious, least of all with a mech like Prowl, but…you tried to get over him and it didn’t work, did it?”

“What do you mean by that, ‘a mech like Prowl?’ Y’all don’t give him enough credit, he’s one o’ the best mechs I ever – ” a short laugh escaped Jazz’ vocalizer before he could stop himself. “Somehow I keep forgettin’ how insightful you are.”

“Doesn’t take insight to figure out something’s up when your friend stops goin’ home with the groupies and starts spendin’ all his time with one mech instead of with all his friends,” Blaster laughed too. “You really thought it wasn’t obvious how much he means to you?”

“Well, I had hoped I was bein’ sorta subtle,” Jazz said. “Thought it’d be easier to get over if no one knew about it.”

“Including yourself? You been tellin’ yourself you weren’t fallin’ for him too? How’d that work out?”

“Shut your mouth! It was workin’ great until you dragged all the feelings out from under the nice engex I’d buried ‘em with,” Jazz said without much force. “Actually that’s a lie, I was doin’ fine ignoring them without the engex until recently. Guess the Festival is reminding me of Kaon.” He sighed, downing the rest of his drink and signaling the bartender for another. “The whole time at that ceremony all I could think was, I wish that was us.”

“We noticed,” Beatbox piped up from behind him.  Jazz realized belatedly that the other two had been listening the whole time. “What we didn’t understand was why you didn’t do anything about it once we all got back to Praxus.”

The bartender returned with Jazz’ refill, which he stood to take and tipped the mech before motioning Blaster to follow him back to join the table.

“Yes, why didn’t you?” Switchstep asked as they settled into their seats. “You’ve been friends with Prowl even longer than you’ve been dancing with us and we’ve been together for ages. Why didn’t you just make a move? You know, take that first step and see how he responded?”

“ _Because_ I’ve been friends with him for so long and I _know_ how he would have responded,” Jazz answered. “It took almost 20 vorn after I met him for him to even call me an acquaintance. Then it was another 30 before he’d call me his friend—“

“32.47, but who’s counting?” Blaster interjected. “I remember someone threw a ‘Prowler finally used the F-word party’ when that happened.”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut your mouth?” Jazz reminded him. “Fine, another 32.47 vorn for him to call me his friend. And in that time and all the time since, I learned that Prowler ain’t interested in mates or bondin’, not with me, not with anyone; it‘s just not a priority in his life, and that’s cool. I get it, it’s cool.”

“I don’t believe you, and neither do you.”

“BB, I love you, but we ain’t friends anymore if you don’t take that back.”

She laughed. “Too bad, random-mech-I-work-with-who-isn’t-my-friend-anymore.” The other two started laughing as well, and a moment later Jazz found himself joining in.

“Okay, fine, maybe I’m not so cool with it. But I ain’t gonna ask him for something he doesn’t want. I thought about it and I can’t stand the thought of losin’ him over it, so don’t any of you dare try to talkin’ to him about it. I’ll get over it.”

“Clearly you won’t; this isn’t just a crush, not if you’ve spent the fifty vorn since the last Festival pining over him and the upcoming one has you so sad instead of happy,” Switchstep said. He held his hands up defensively at the growl Jazz gave him. “I’m not going to say anything to him, I promise. But if you feel that strongly about him, I still think _you_ should.”

“I appreciate the support mech, but I know Prowl,” Jazz repeated. “I won’t risk our friendship, not when it took 32.47 vorn to get.”

“52.47, if you count the vorn you were just an acquaintance.”

“Blaster!”

When the laughter died down again, Jazz raised his glass. “How ‘bout a toast to friendship then? However old they are?”

“Oh, are we friends again?” Beatbox teased, raising her glass as well.

“Just for the sake of the toast,” Jazz grinned. The others raised their glasses too and as one they finished their drinks. “So, you made me talk about my troubles, now you owe me a distraction! C’mon, let’s figure out somethin’ fun we can do to mess with the tourists!”

Before anyone could start offering ideas however, the bartender called out to them from behind the counter. “Hey, weren’t you all talking about Prowl just now?” He waved up toward the vidscreen. “If so, someone should probably tell that mech that he’s not the bonding type before he wastes his time.”

The view on the monitor had switched from the shuttle port to an interview stage where the announcer was now talking to some of the mechs and femmes currently signed up to take part in the Challenge of Adaptus. Sitting across from her at the moment was a large green and black mech with silver accents and an arm ending in a huge hook. An image of Prowl’s face was displayed behind them.

“Don’t bother speculating about who I plan to claim,” he was saying. “I’m not making it a secret – I’m doing this for Prowl, and when I win,” he smiled, red optics flaring possessively, “he’s mine.”

Jazz’ own blue visor darkened dangerously. “Not you again,” he growled at the screen, hands clenching into fists on the table. “What the Pit are you trying to pull now?”

“I thought he’d given up,” Switchstep said.

“But if Prowl doesn’t want him, even if he wins he can’t claim him, right?” Beatbox asked.

“As long as Prowl’s exempt from the Champion’s choice he can’t,” Blaster said to her before turning to Jazz. “Prowl _did_ file an exemption, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Jazz replied, already on his feet, “but I’m gonna go ask him right now. I don’t care how busy he is. It ain’t like Prowl to overlook a detail like that, but I know Lockdown. He wouldn’t make that kind of announcement without checking first.”

***

“No, I never filed an exemption. It hardly seemed necessary, as the likelihood of anyone ever claiming me for their mate in one of the Challenges was so astronomically low.” Prowl’s voice was calm and steady as usual as he spoke without looking up from the stack of data pads for the increased Festival security he was reviewing. His doorwings, however, twitched minutely in annoyance. Most would assume it was a reaction to the interruption, but Jazz knew his friend better than that.

“Seems to me you miscalculated,” he said, watching Prowl carefully. Twitch went the doorwings. “I can see how much that bothers you –“

“It does not bother me.”

“ –but it ain’t like you could have predicted he’d do something like this. Course, it ain’t like you not to take care of loose ends either. Why didn’t you eliminate the risk entirely by filing the exemption, Prowler?”

“Please refrain from using that name while I am on duty, Jazz,” Prowl reminded him absently, still not looking up from his work.

“I’m serious, Prowl.” Jazz insisted, reaching across the desk to pluck the datapad out of his hands. “Why didn’t you? More importantly, why aren’t you filing one right now? It’s not too late, the lists aren’t locked yet.  You can file an exemption or sign up for the Challenge right up to the start of the Festival, so you still got time. What’s stopping you?”

Prowl’s posture had stiffened when Jazz snatched the datapad, and he tensed even further at the question. A sick feeling growing in his tanks, Jazz forced himself to ask, “You didn’t…change your mind about him, did you?”

Finally Prowl’s helm came up, his expression hard. “I most certainly did not,” he said firmly, voice still even but with hints of indignation bleeding through in his EM field. “I have never had any interest in him or his proposals; that has not changed nor is it going to, regardless of what actions he takes.”

Jazz tried not to let his relief show too much. “Okay, good. Just thought I’d check, cuz if you had changed your mind I’d be obligated to remind you that Lockdown ain’t really lookin’ for a mate.  He’s just lookin’ for another trophy.”

“I believe the term he used was partner.”

“What he said and what he meant are two different things, and you know he wouldn’t treat you like a partner.”

“Some of the things he said were in fact said in all seriousness, although I am still not sure why he has decided to fixate on bonding.”

“Does why really matter? Point is that he did, and he’s gonna try to literally win you like a prize and make a mockery of the Champion’s choice to get his way with you. That’s not what the Challenge is supposed to be about! It’s supposed to be about provin’ yourself to your love and having your bonding blessed by the Guiding Hand. Not cornering a mech cuz you can’t take no for an answer.”

“You’re a romantic, Jazz,” Prowl smiled ever so slightly, the small smile that always made Jazz’ tanks flutter and his spark spin just a little faster. Jazz loved that smile and treasured it every time he saw it. “Your feelings are admirable, but reality is not always so ideal. Fortunately the government recognizes this, and the Champion’s choice does not automatically confer legal consent to bond.”

His expression had blanked again, but Jazz was now smiling sardonically. “No, but it _does_ automatically stick you with a one-year courtship period in shared livin’ space if you ain’t exempt and you decline to bond right away.” He started pacing in front of the desk in an attempt to control his rising anger. “You don’t want it! You don’t want to bond with him even at the end of that year, so why put yourself through it?”

“It’s not a certainty I will have to, as you say, put myself through it,” Prowl countered. “He might not win the title of Champion, after all.”

“Oh really? And what’re the odds of him not winnin’? I haven’t checked with my bookie, but I’d wager they’re, _as you say_ , astronomically low.” Jazz came back to lean on the desk, palms flat on the surface. “The other contenders signed up right now? There ain’t a one who could compete with a mech of Lockdown’s caliber if his T-Cog was locked.”

“That’s not very nice, you know.”

“But true – some of ‘em probably won’t even be able to finish the course, let alone with the best time. Even if the competition was good though, let’s face it: the Challenge of Adaptus is perfect for Lockdown. He does this stuff for a livin’ every day and he’ll be in his element on an obstacle course like that. I can’t stand the mech, but even I have to admit he’s one of the best bounty hunters on Cybertron.”

“I am aware of that.”

“So you did run the numbers then? I know you love statistics Prowl, so tell me honestly.  What’s the math about his odds?”

Prowl’s hesitation was not promising, and neither was his eventual answer. “Against the currently enrolled contenders, Lockdown’s chances of winning the race and becoming the next Champion of Adaptus are nearly 95%. Factoring in a margin for error and an allowance for random chance, of course.”

“Oh, of course, and a 5% error margin is what you’re counting on to get you out of livin’ with the creep for a year, constantly fending off his attempts to break you down?” Jazz threw up his hands in disbelief. “You’re the one always tellin’ me if you argue with math you lose! Why do I even have to ask you why you haven’t done up the form already? C’mon, you probably have a copy lyin’ around this very office!”

“There are other considerations,” Prowl hedged, optics flickering away from Jazz to the datapads on his desk, but Jazz wasn’t about to let him brush him off like that this time.

“Really? Explain ‘em to me.”

“It’s not important.”

“You’re dodging the question.”

“I have a lot to do right now, Jazz.”

“That’s your excuse then? You’re too busy to fill out the form? Pit, I’ll do it, give me the datapad and all you have to do is sign.”

“Jazz, please!” Prowl’s voice wavered for the first time, rising slightly and sounding almost desperate. Immediately Jazz stilled, forcing the tension to drain out of his field. Not an easy feat, since Prowl almost seemed afraid for some reason and all Jazz wanted to do was find the mech responsible and give him a piece of his mind…and possibly his fist.

“It is important, isn’t it? What’s goin’ on?” He went with his first guess. “Did Lockdown come here and threaten you?”

“No. He has never threatened physical injury to my frame.” Prowl dodged again.

“How ‘bout threatenin’ your peace o’ mind? Mech, I know a stalker when I see one, and I shouldn’t have to tell an Enforcer that stalking is illegal. Damn it, Prowler, this ain’t right!”

“There are other considerations,” Prowl repeated quietly, if anything looking defeated now rather than frightened. That, combined with the fact that he’d let the nickname pass without comment, had Jazz starting to edge toward panic.

“We’re friends, ain’t we?” he said, trying to project as much support as he could in his field instead of letting his own fear show. The last time Prowl had started talking about considerations that way he’d been obliquely referring to unofficial orders from his Captain. Jazz prayed to Primus that wasn’t the case now. “Talk to me. Maybe I can help.”

“It can’t _be_ helped, Jazz. And no, that’s not a lack of faith in you,” Prowl added quickly, that small smile making the briefest of reappearances. “You’re one of the most capable, creative, adaptable mechs I know. You could probably even give Lockdown a run for his shannix if it came to it, but he’s not the problem. The problem is me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jazz said firmly, sliding one of his hands forward across the desk to take Prowl’s. “No one asks for a stalker.”

“That’s not what I meant. What I meant is that I am not in a position to take action on the matter. I can’t take steps against him that would impede his ability to work with the precinct. Captain Barricade relies heavily on him to deal with criminals who flee Praxus to avoid prosecution.”

“There are other bounty hunters on Cybertron,” Jazz tried.

“None as capable or as dedicated to our precinct.  Lockdown almost exclusively takes our contracts, and as you noted, he is highly skilled. While I do not care for his personal attentions, it is a minor inconvenience compared to the professional benefits, and a restraining order or an investigation would be disruptive to that state of affairs.”

Jazz cursed silently.  He wasn’t sure how much of Prowl’s speech was coming from his own propensity for self-sacrifice when it came to his job and how much was coming from Barricade, but either way it was clear that Prowl wasn’t going to stand up for himself on the matter and was willfully ignoring a very important detail. “He’s focusing his professional attentions here _because_ he’s chasin’ you for personal reasons.  The only way you won’t end up losin’ the preferential treatment is to give him what he wants, which you don’t want to do, so you might as well get rid of him sooner rather than later.”

“He has already proven that he will not easily be gotten rid of.”

“No kiddin’, he’s propositioned you like 20 times already.”

“He has asked directly 23 times, though he has hinted and implied indirectly a great deal more frequently than that.”

“Yeesh, what is this, correct Jazz’s numbers day?”

Prowl’s optics flickered, momentarily distracted. “That was only the first time I have corrected you today. Who else has been doing so?”

“Blaster, if you can believe it.” Jazz replied. “That’s not the point though. The point is I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“And that is precisely why filing an exemption now would be dangerous,” Prowl explained. “Since he has already publicly declared his participation and intentions, if I render his actions pointless it will embarrass and anger him, possibly to the point of violence. Given the circumstances, it is less of a risk to allow him to proceed and simply endure the subsequent courtship period upon his victory.”

Jazz tightened his hold on Prowl’s hand, sudden realization flooding through his processor. “I get it now – you’re countin’ on this bein’ the end of it, cuz if you still turn him down after that year he’s got no more options. It’ll be public knowledge because of the publicity of the Festival so no one will be able to bring it up again. But Prowl, he’ll know this is his last chance. He ain’t gonna let you go without a fight, and even if he doesn’t hurt you physically – which I don’t trust him not to – that’s not what I meant when I said I didn’t want to see you get hurt. I don’t want you to be miserable either. Y’know, miserable? Like you’re feeling right now?”

Prowl pulled away, withdrawing both his hand and his field. “The situation I’m in now is the result of my own actions or previous lack thereof and how I feel about the matter is irrelevant.”

Jazz swore internally. It was killing him that Prowl seemed to think he deserved to be in this mess, but he wasn’t going to be able to convince him otherwise right now. He needed to back off and calm down before trying to break through to him again, and Prowl wasn’t going to be willing to talk about it anymore until he finished his work.  There wasn’t a lot of time left though – would he be able to get another chance before the Festival started and it was too late?

“Can you at least tell me why you didn’t file an exemption in the past?” he asked, stalling for time as he kept trying to think of some way to help his friend. “A couple of minutes is all it would have taken and then you never would’ve had to worry about it. Lockdown would’ve seen you were exempt and never would’ve done this.”

Prowl regarded him sternly.  “If I tell you, will you leave so I can get back to work?”

“If that’s what you need right now…yes. Promise.” Jazz was forced to concede.

“All right.” Prowl continued looking straight at Jazz, his expression unchanging, but the sudden pain that leaked into his field had Jazz’ spark crying out at its rawness. “I never filed an exemption because I did not want to encourage my reputation amongst my fellow Enforcers as a sparked drone with no interests beyond the scope of my duties. When I first considered it, the damage it would have done cementing that image far outweighed the advantages of eliminating the minimal risk of having to tolerate a single year’s inconvenience.” His doorwings shivered slightly with suppressed emotion. “I was not well liked and had no friends on the force. The harassment I would have garnered from my colleagues over the centuries considerably exceeds what a single mech, even one as unpleasant and tenacious as Lockdown, could put me through in a single paltry year. Most of his harassment an exemption would not have saved me from anyway. It was a calculated decision and I am satisfied with the outcome.”

Jazz stood frozen for a moment, struggling with the urge to leap over the desk to hug Prowl and tell him he wasn’t a drone, that he was wonderful and beautiful and his colleagues were idiots for thinking that about him.  But Prowl wasn’t likely to appreciate or believe that.  “Satisfied ain’t happy, Prowl. And right now, ain’t neither of us happy,” he managed to say instead before turning to make his way over to the door. “You got friends now, you know. And friends care about each other’s happiness. But they also keep their promises – I’ll let you work in peace.”

“Thank you,” Prowl said, though Jazz wasn’t sure if he was thanking him for his concern or for leaving. “I hope the Festival is lucrative for you and your troupe. Just, please,” he added, “don’t force me to arrest you again.”

With a thumbs-up – but no promises – Jazz bowed out and headed off down the hall.

As his footsteps faded, Prowl’s doorwings sagged slightly. He waited until he was sure the mech was out of even his advanced audial range before speaking again quietly to the empty room. “I never filed an exemption because I did not want to eliminate the option entirely. Not wanting to be bonded to Lockdown does not mean I never want to bond. Just because I do not want him to choose me,” his voice trailed off to a whisper, “doesn’t mean that I never want to be chosen.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that he knows that Prowl isn't going to do anything to solve the problem himself, Jazz needs to decide what he's going to do about it. If only he could figure out what!

“Of all the stupid, self-sacrificin’, processor-addled things I’ve ever – aw, c’mon, what is this?” Jazz broke off his rant to ping the city-wide Nav System for an update as the traffic around him slowed and ground to a halt. There was no information available. Jazz huffed quietly and idled in alt-mode, though several other more impatient commuters were already beginning to honk horns, growl engines and yell obscenities over open frequencies.

He was lucky he hadn’t hit the bumper in front of him when he slammed on his brakes in his distraction. All he’d been able to think about since he’d left Prowl’s office was the mech’s idiotic determination to martyr himself. He had done all he could think of to convince Prowl shake Lockdown loose before, but aside from tactfully rejecting his outright proposals he had never actively discouraged him, and just look where that got him! The more Jazz contemplated it, the more he was certain that the tacit approval of a match between himself and Lockdown from the other Enforcers, especially the captain, had convinced Prowl he should tolerate the bounty hunter’s advances for the sake of his job.  Never mind the fact that they couldn’t officially order him to do anything like that; Prowl would put the obligation on himself all on his own if it looked like the strategically sound thing to do, regardless of how he felt about it.

His unusual lack of initiative in dealing with Lockdown had driven Jazz to the point of actually confronting the mech himself to try to get him to back off, which had gone spectacularly poorly. Lockdown had told Jazz he wasn’t interested in hearing what Prowl wanted from anyone but Prowl himself, then very carefully walked the line of legality with his following remarks about what he thought of Jazz and the things that could happen to mechs like him who didn’t mind their own business. The encounter hadn’t frightened Jazz for his own safety anywhere near as much as it had concerned him for Prowl, who had been furious when he’d found out what Jazz had done and told him not to meddle in his affairs like that again.

He’d stayed mad a long time afterward too, long enough that Jazz had started to worry that he was never going to forgive him. He’d enlisted his friends to help him come up with dozens of ways to apologize, each more exaggerated and over the top than the last, and whether Prowl had given in just to make him stop (which was probably at least part of it) or because he finally accepted that he had honestly just been trying to help him, either way he had been extremely grateful to put it all behind them.

That fiasco was part of what had Jazz feeling so helpless now. Prowl was obviously not going to do anything to get himself out of this mess, and would just as obviously resent him if he went ahead and tried filing the exemption on his behalf after their conversation. _Not that I could forge an Enforcer’s signature well enough to fool the very Enforcer in question anyway_ , Jazz thought, laughing a little to himself as he imagined trying to slip something like that past Prowl.

He sobered again quickly though. Funny as the thought was, he didn’t have time to play around. He needed to come up with another solution. There was no way Jazz could just sit back and watch while Prowl did nothing to defend himself. He might have managed to convince himself that nothing horrible would happen and that it would all be over in a year, but Jazz wasn’t so delusional.

_Guess part of that not bein’ delusional would be admitting that this isn’t just about helping Prowl escape from Lockdown,_ Jazz thought. _I can deal with Prowl not ever wantin’ a relationship like that with me, but I don’t think I can take seeing him bonded to someone else, and_ definitely _not a creep like that._

A particularly loud siren cut through his reverie, startling him. For a moment Jazz thought it was emergency response coming to deal with an accident up ahead before realizing it was just one of the drivers in the next lane expressing his frustration with his onboard sirens. He suppressed the urge to activate his own sound system and blast rave music through his speakers in retaliation. It would only make him feel better for a moment, and he didn’t need another citation for excessive volume.

He rocked quietly on his tires instead, remembering his first such citation in Praxus. That was what had brought him and Prowl together in the first place shortly after Jazz had moved to the city so long ago. Some mechs just had no appreciation for good music, and a disgruntled resident had called the Enforcers to remove Jazz and his then-colleague from the street corner they’d been performing on for loitering and creating a nuisance.

Prowl’s comment about arresting him as he’d headed out the door hadn’t been a reference to that incident though. That one hadn’t resulted in anything more serious than a written warning, but there had been other occasions. The lifestyle of a street performer had put Jazz in frequent contact with the local law enforcement, and eventually becoming a member of a permanent troupe based out of an established club hadn’t lessened those interactions significantly, despite the good standing Rhythm ‘n Booze had in the area. Still, all told Prowl had only ever had to actually arrest him a handful of times, and never for anything serious.

It had been a coincidence at first that Prowl always wound up being the Enforcer to deal with whatever Jazz had gotten himself involved in. As they kept running into each other however, Jazz began to suspect that Prowl was deliberately watching for his name to pop up on the precinct’s server and making sure he was the officer assigned to his cases. He’d been right, but it wasn’t because the Enforcer had developed a grudge; rather, he’d developed an interest.

Most would never believe it, and Prowl himself would deny it, but the black and white Praxian had a wicked, subtle sense of humor. He was also brilliant and appreciated a stimulating conversation partner. Jazz, who also loved a good debate and enjoyed discussing a much wider range of subject matter than most gave him credit for, had found himself enjoying Prowl’s company and had started looking forward to the next time he might see him, eventually going so far as to linger at the precinct just to talk even after whatever trouble he’d gotten into had been resolved. In time they’d begun meeting up outside the precinct instead, and slowly the amount of time they spent together increased until hardly a week went by where they didn’t at least meet for an hour or two to talk at Prowl’s favorite café.

It was an unlikely friendship, but as time went by everyone, even Prowl, had had to admit that friendship was what it was.  Jazz had begun making a concerted effort to stay out of trouble for Prowl’s sake because of that friendship, and it had been decades since their last professional encounter. _If this doesn’t start clearin’ up real soon though, that’s all gonna change and he’ll have to come out from behind that desk to write me up for a traffic violation,_ Jazz thought, pinging the Nav System again. Still no information on the cause of the delay.

He tried to relax and be patient, but sitting still like this made it far too easy for his thoughts to wander in circles, and Jazz was tired of it. It was all he’d been doing for days, trying not to think about Prowl and the Festival, and he wasn’t getting any further in figuring out what he could do about Lockdown than he was getting on the road. He’d been planning to get back to the club and brainstorm with the others, figuring that if they couldn’t help him come up with a plan at least they could help distract him and he could lose himself in the physical demands of rehearsal…or another round of engex.

It wasn’t fair, he found himself thinking again. The two of them had discussed their views on the subject of bondmates early on after seeing a couple propose in the Crystal Gardens. Prowl had said that he had no desire for an imposition like that to his routine and had asserted that between his dedication to his work and a low physical interface drive (not common, but not unheard of for his frame type) that he would be a poor choice of a mate for anyone. At the time Jazz had been happy enough just to be friends, enjoying the quieter time he spent with Prowl while still living large and partying hard on the club scene. He hadn’t wanted the restriction of a serious relationship on his lifestyle either, let alone a bondmate, and had said as much. That had been the end of it, and that’s how it was supposed to have stayed.

He’d never meant to fall in love with Prowl. At first he’d tried to convince himself that he was misinterpreting things. After all, he’d said so himself, he wasn’t the bonding type! He didn’t do serious relationships, didn’t want to be tied down! But no amount of partying had made up for the fact that he was finding it increasingly less satisfying and that the novelty of success was fading away.  No amount of mental gymnastics could change the fact that he thought about Prowl more and more whenever they weren’t together or that his first impulse when he saw something interesting or thought of something clever was to share it with him. The final nail in the Spectralist coffin had been the Champion’s Bonding Ceremony after the Challenge of Mortilus. Prowl had been there as part of the security detail for one of the Praxian dignitaries, and as the ceremony had started and Jazz saw him standing off to the side of the raised dais, he’d been struck with an overwhelming longing to be standing together with him on it. The crowd had been entirely focused on the chosen pair, but all Jazz could see was Prowl.

_And apparently my friends all saw me starin’ too, except none of them had the bearings to say anything until now!_ Part of him wished that they had, though if he was being realistic he had to admit it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. At least now he knew why none of them had commented on how he’d stopped berth-hopping after that (and he hadn’t even missed it, as if he’d needed any more proof of his infatuation).

As if thoughts of them had conjured it, his HUD suddenly lit up with an incoming call from Blaster, accompanied by the long awaited update from the Nav System.

[Hey mech, I’m on my way back now via the high-speed parkin’ lot,] he answered the call, not waiting for Blaster to start talking as he checked the bulletin. [I talked to Prowl, and I gotta tell you, between what he told me and this damn traffic I’m about ready to drive over the guardrail.]

[Scrap, I was hopin’ to catch you before you left the precinct. BB saw the alert about the traffic pop up and asked me to call you since you never check travel times.] He sounded amused. [Guess they’re settin’ up a new traffic pattern to get ready for the Prime’s arrival.]

[I just saw; why’d they have to start that now?] Jazz complained as the noise around him increased. Clearly the development was not being well received by his fellow motorists either.

[Can you get off the highway and take an alternate route?] Blaster asked.

[I just passed an exit before I got caught in this gridlock!] Jazz said, scanning his surroundings to confirm his location before he continued. [The next exit’s not until the interchange and it looks like they’ve closed that off and are divertin’ everyone into the local lanes, which means it’s going to take forever for me to get out of here.]

[Give us a holler when you get closer then, I guess. We all want to know what happened.] The line went quiet as though he was talking to someone else before he came back. [Switchstep can’t stay late tonight though, so if you aren’t going to be able to make it back soon maybe we’ll have to hear it in the mornin’.]

[What? No, I need to talk to all of you! When does he have to be home by? Can’t he wait another hour?]

[Half an hour, and I don’t think –]

[There you go arguin’ numbers with me again.] Jazz ignored Blaster’s spluttered protest in favor of a little fast thinking. [Hey Blaster,] he cut him off. [Tell him just to hang out as long as he can. I’ve got an idea how I can make it back quickly.]

[Uh oh. Are you sure it’s a good idea? You better not be about to actually drive over the guardrail.]

[Pfft, ‘course it’s a good idea, it’s mine. Don’t worry, I got this.] Hanging up before Blaster could say anything else, he revved his engine and drove forward, running his tires up onto the divider to get around the mech in front of him. Balancing the inner edges of his tires on the raised median, Jazz took off toward the interchange to a cacophony of horns and curses. _I’m done sittin’ in traffic,_ he thought, letting out a loud whoop. _Good thing I didn’t make Prowl any promises._

***

“He hung up on me,” Blaster said in mock outrage. “Can you believe that mech? He hung up on me!”

“He left already, huh?” Beatbox confirmed, ignoring his theatrics.

“Yeah, and he sounded like he was about to do somethin’ crazy.” He turned to face the bar. “Hey, bartender! Could you turn up the sound on the screen?” he called.

“No! Something crazy enough to wind up on livefeed?!” Beatbox exclaimed. “What did he say?”

“Oh, somethin’ about driving over the guardrail to get around the traffic detour.”

Switchstep made a disapproving sound as Beatbox rushed over to get a better view. “Prowl won’t like that.”

“I don’t think he’s all that worried about that right now. He sounded pretty upset, and when Jazz gets upset…”

“He gets stupid,” Switchstep finished.

“Dunno about stupid,” Blaster tried to defend him. “He just doesn’t bother thinkin’ through consequences. Nine times out of ten it all works out for him.”

“Sure – but the tenth time he winds up getting arrested, needing a medic, or both.”

“Shhhhh, look, there he is!” Beatbox cut them off, fidgeting nervously as the view on the screen zoomed in on a sleek black and white mech effortlessly riding the median on one of the city expressways toward a temporary blockade at the interchange.

“Oh, this is not going to end well,” Switchstep groaned, though he crowded up to the bar right along with the others to watch as the mech on the screen continued to pick up speed. The camera was having trouble getting him in focus, but even though the other bar patrons hadn’t recognized him as a member of their troupe, the three friends were certain it was Jazz.

“He wouldn’t really jump the guardrail, would he?” Beatbox worried.

“Like I said, he gets stupid when he’s upset.”

“That would be beyond stupid! That high up, and with all those Enforcers there? It’d be fried-circuits bonkers!” Sure enough, as the camera pulled back for a wider shot, several low-ranking Enforcers were visible around the blockade directing traffic. They seemed to be unaware of the maniac barreling toward them, and said maniac seemed absolutely unconcerned by their presence.

Everyone in the bar watched as the black and white sports model came up on the end of the road and popped a wheelie, angling toward a low-riding truckformer and pulling himself up onto the other mech’s hood using his front wheels.  He drove over the top of the truck to a larger transport vehicle, clearing its roof to land on the stationary construction mech who had set up the blockade. Balancing just on his left tires, he flew up and off the end of the mech’s crane arm, launching himself not just over the barrier but the wall of the interchange itself before the Enforcers could even turn their sirens on.

“Okay then.” Beatbox deadpanned. “He’s fried-circuits bonkers.”

“That’s it, this time it’s both. The medics are going to have to scrape him off the pavement so the Enforcers can arrest what’s left.”

The sudden frenzy of activity and explosion of sound and flashing lights on the screen was matched in the bar by a series of wild speculations from the gathered mechs and femmes trying to guess what was going to happen next.

“He’s jumped down onto the lower level, the Enforcers’ll catch him for sure!” one mech said.

“No, he didn’t do that!” the femme next to him countered. “He’s jumped back into the locals to escape!”

“The locals aren’t moving thanks to that detour, he’d have nowhere to go!”

“Yeah, he’s got to still be on the expressway!”

“But then we’d see him on the road – where is he?”

The camera was rapidly switching between views, but there was no sign of him in any of the other lanes or, fortunately, on the ground several levels below. Blaster opened a line on their troupe frequency so they could talk without being overheard. [There, see? He ain’t dead.]

[No, just vanished,] Switchstep replied. He chuckled in spite of himself. [I bet he’s using our stage paint as camouflage.] He and Jazz had both recently gotten a new secondary paint scheme coded into their nanites for performing at the club. The blacklight accents really popped on stage when activated, but it looked like nothing more than a matte silver basecoat under normal light.

[That’s a good bet. He’s probably back in root form blendin’ in and climbin’ the supports.] The seemingly monochromatic paint would be perfect for a mech trying to disappear amongst the infrastructure of the highway, especially with the Enforcers looking for a black and white car on the road.

[That is not what it’s for,] the other dancer said ruefully, though he was still grinning.

“Wait, is that him?” Someone cried out as the feed stopped panning around to follow a black and white mech with familiar looking blue stripes driving with the regular traffic on one of the lower levels.

[Oh no, they’re going to catch him!] Beatbox jumped into the chat.

[Chill out, that ain’t him,] Blaster said smoothly.

[It’s not?]

[No way, can’t be.]

Switchstep nodded as the Enforcers caught up and began pulling the mech over. [Blaster’s right, that’s not Jazz – the alt mode is similar and so is the paint, but look at the transformation seams. They’re in the wrong places.]

[Wow, you can tell from that?]

[Of course. I’ve been dancing with him long enough to know his transformation sequence like it was my own.] He answered.

[That’s cuz you like his style and keep tryin’ to imitate him.]

[Aw, I don’t mind – imitation’s the highest form o’ flattery, after all.]

[JAZZ?!]

All three of them whirled at the unexpected intrusion to find the mech himself standing against the wall, silver paint blending into the shadows. Beatbox rushed to him first, swatting at him as the other two came over behind her. “You glitch!” she scolded softly to avoid drawing attention, though there was no real need. Everyone else still had their optics fixed on the arrest-in-progress on the vidscreen. “What were you thinking?”

Jazz shrugged off her ineffectual assault with ease. “Honestly? That I just wanted to stop thinkin’ for a while.”

“You almost succeeded a bit too well,” Switchstep said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We’re glad you’re okay. So, how long do you think it’ll be before the Enforcers turn up?”

“Aw, they’re not going to come here! Look at the screen mech, they got their guy!”

“Not for long. They’ll figure out he’s innocent and go back to review the footage and the second Prowl sees it he’ll know it was you.”

“Well then he can come here and arrest me for it. I wasn’t done talkin’ with him when he chased me out anyway,” Jazz said somewhat sourly.

“I knew it didn’t go well,” Blaster said. “He bein’ stubborn again?”

“No, he’s bein’ stupid.”

Beatbox snorted ungracefully. “Stupid’s more like what you just did.”

“That? That wasn’t stupid, that was a party!” Jazz grinned and gestured to the vidscreen. “See? They even broke out the party lights!”

Switchstep stared blankly at him for a moment. “Party lights?”

“Yeah, party lights! You know, the red ‘n blue blinky ones that make all the noise.”

“…that’s ridiculous.”

“And it’s beside the point,” Blaster interjected. “C’mon, mech, how’s about you cut to the chase, hmm? What did Prowl have to say?”

Jazz’s smile flickered and went out. He moved to sit at a corner table and the others each pulled up a seat around it. “Well for starters he didn’t file an exemption. Says he ain’t going to either,” he said, picking up a glass someone had left behind and rolling it back and forth in his hands. “Says it’s just for a year if Lockdown wins and he might not even win after all, so what’s the big deal?”

“’Might not win’?” Switchstep echoed in disbelief. “Not likely. We watched the interviews with the other participants today and Lockdown’s practically already been crowned Champion before the race even starts.”

“95% chance of victory, accordin’ to Prowl.”

“But then why isn’t he doing something about it?” Beatbox frowned. “He can’t really be okay with it, is he?”

Jazz shook his helm in frustration. “No he’s not, and damn it, I just don’t get it!” He all but slammed the empty tumbler down on the table, the loud thunk! punctuating his sentence. “Even if he’s right that filing an exemption now would make Lockdown mad enough to do somethin’ dangerous that’s nothing compared to the danger of havin’ to live with him for a year. He says he can handle it, but even if he could he shouldn’t have to and he won’t let me help him!” The glass rattled against the table as his hands shook. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t file the exemption for him, he’d hate me for it, and I can’t think of any other way to stop him!”

“Which him?” Blaster asked.

“Both of them!” Jazz exploded. “I can’t just let Prowl sacrifice his feelings for his job again and I can’t let Lockdown use a sacred rite to coerce my Prowler into accepting a crooked proposal!”

Beatbox and Blaster shared a look. [‘My Prowler’?] she sent over a short-range private frequency.

[I heard,] he replied, opening a connection to the central datanet. [And I think I’ve got an idea. Grab me a datapad, would you?] he said before focusing again on Jazz as she nodded and slipped away.

“What makes you so sure Prowl would wind up accepting?” Switchstep was saying. “You really think he’s wrong about being able to handle him for the whole courtship period?”

“I think he’s underestimating his opponent!” Jazz grit his teeth. “Prowl thinks he’s got it all worked out, that he’s calculated the worst Lockdown can do and figures he can endure it and that at the end it’ll be over for good, but he’s wrong. Lockdown won’t be playing by the same rules he’s been following up until now, toeing the line for appearances sake – he’ll do whatever it takes to beat him down until he gives in, to break him so he won’t be able to say no anymore.” His helm fall forward and he hid his face in his hands. “And then I’ll lose him forever.”

“Well if that’s the case, you just need to make sure someone other than Lockdown wins,” Switchstep said. “Someone who’ll use that year to actually court him instead of harass him.”

[Here’s the datapad,] Beatbox came back, handing it off to Blaster under the table. [What’s your plan?]

[I think Switchstep’s on the same train of thought as I am,] Blaster said hopefully, uploading the file he’d just pulled from the datanet to the pad. [Give him a minute.]

“Someone else wouldn’t pick Prowl if they won and then there wouldn’t even be a problem,” Jazz said, raising his helm. “But there isn’t anyone who can beat him, so that isn’t going to help!” He looked like he was about to throw the glass he was still fiercely gripping, so Blaster cut in.

“Okay, time out. Let’s try to calm down for a second, hmm? I think I’ve come up with a solution.” He caught Switchstep’s optics meaningfully before continuing. “Jazz, how did you get back here out of that traffic jam so fast?”

“Huh?” Jazz swung around to look at Blaster, confused. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I’m gettin’ to it, just work with me for a minute. Well?”

Jazz shrugged like it was no big deal. “Actually I owe you for the idea, mech. You told me I don’t check travel times, so I that’s what I did.” He grinned somewhat sardonically. “Turns out there was a public transit car scheduled to pass by on the overhead runnin’ this way a few minutes from when you called. I just jumped aboard and rode it to the station up the street.”

There was a moment of silence. “What?” Jazz asked finally, glancing between them all.

“So,” Beatbox said, recovering her voice first. “You just jumped aboard the overhead transit line. The line that runs _three levels_ above the expressway?”

“The expressway where you were sitting stuck in traffic?” Switchstep added.

“Which you escaped by jumping over a blockade in alt mode before transforming and climbing the support structure to reach the track?”

“In a couple of minutes?”

“With _dozens_ of Enforcers around?”

“And NO ONE SAW YOU?!”

Jazz felt his faceplates heating as one by one his friends chimed in around the circle. “Pretty much,” he said once they had finished. “I thought you said that was stupid,” he reminded them.

“Maybe you should keep doin’ stupid things then,” Blaster said, pulling out the datapad and handing it to him.

“What’s this?” Jazz took it and activated the display, almost dropping it when he saw the header of the application form. “Oh no. No way. This ain’t a solution, Blaster.”

“Sure it is,” the host mech argued. “All you need to do is fill it out, hand it in, and kick Lockdown’s aft in the race.”

“What makes you think I’d be any sort of a match for a professional like Lockdown?” he protested.

“You’ve got the moves,” Switchstep said confidently. “Think about what you just did.  You’d have to be completely fried-circuits bonkers to try it, of course, but you’ve got that covered too.”

“Hey!” Beatbox pouted.

“Hey yourself, were you callin’ me names earlier?” Jazz made a face at her before looking back at Switchstep. “So what, you think I’m crazy enough to get myself killed? Playin’ in traffic ain’t the same thing as taking on that monster in a no-holds-barred off-road race.”

“No, I think you’re crazy enough to win. And when you do, you can claim Prowl yourself and tell him how you feel so we don’t have to put up with you going all mushy whenever someone dedicates a song to their bondmate.”

Jazz gaped silently for a moment. “I told you, Prowl doesn’t need or want to hear that from me,” he said through faint traces of static.

“You don’t know if you don’t try,” Beatbox countered. “You might be wrong, you know. It’s been known to happen, and he does spend a _lot_ of time with you.”

“As _friends_ ,”Jazz stressed.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, mech. I can count the number of friends he has on two hands, present company included, and I’ve seen how he behaves with all of them. Trust me, he’s completely different with you than he acts around us,” Blaster said. “It’s at least gotta be better than letting Lockdown get him, right?”

Jazz’ visor dimmed slightly. “I don’t want to stop Lockdown just to put a different obligation on Prowl. And –” The static in his voice built until his vocalizer caught and he had to reset it. “I don’t know if I could take him rejectin’ me.”

“Well sure, he probably isn’t going to bond with you right away at the Festival! That’d be way too sudden,” Beatbox said airily, waving a hand through the air dismissively. “But that’s okay, because then you’ll have that whole year with him to court him properly – you know, show him that you actually love and respect him, unlike that creep. Then at the end of the year he’ll say yes and you can be together forever and Adaptus himself will bless your bond!”

“You’re bein’ a romantic. Reality doesn’t work like that,” Jazz said, the irony of having just heard Prowl say the same to him stark in his processor.

“Fine. Look at it this way,” Switchstep said. “Do you have another idea besides winning the Challenge yourself?”

“You already know I don’t.”

“Would you be able to live with yourself if you don’t do anything and Lockdown wins and Prowl gives in and bonds with him?”

Jazz looked like he wanted to be sick at the thought. “I’d rather get killed tryin’ to stop him!”

“Then fill out the form already.” Switchstep concluded firmly.

“Come on, mech,” Blaster said when Jazz continued to hesitate, “have a little more confidence. The Challenge of Adaptus is as perfect for you as it is for Lockdown. You can do this.”

_You’re one of the most capable, creative, adaptable mechs I know,_ Prowl’s words echoed in his processor. Jazz looked at Blaster and imagined it was Prowl was sitting across from him, smiling that small, special smile he loved so much. _You could probably even give Lockdown a run for his shannix._ Unconsciously his fingers tightened on the datapad.

“I don’t want to pressure him into anything he doesn’t want,” Jazz repeated softly, his resolve wavering.

“Then don’t – just tell him how you feel. Lay it all out on the table and let him decide what to do with it from there.” Blaster persisted. “You don’t have to do anything more than that.”

“And he’ll be grateful for your honesty.” Beatbox smiled. “Besides, you’ve been dreaming about this for vorns now. Can you really pass up the opportunity to make those dreams come true?”

For a long moment Jazz didn’t respond. His friends all sat frozen in place, hoping.

“You know what?” he said at last, voice gaining in strength. “Maybe it ain’t such a bad idea after all.” He smiled and looked around the table. “Well? Someone hurry up and pass me a stylus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is absolutely, totally, 100% being posted today as a happy birthday to SlimReaper and not at all because I posted chapter one a week ago today XD


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl is having a really bad day at work, and his shift was over hours ago. Too bad things just keep getting worse.

A light tap on the doorframe jerked Prowl out of the schedules he'd buried himself in after Jazz's departure several hours ago. Making sure that security was adequately staffed to handle the increased workload of the Festival wasn't something he found as tedious as the officer who had handed it off to him did, but it did require his full attention, which was precisely why he had chosen it to distract himself. Looking up, he saw the precinct's best sharpshooter peering in with a hopeful expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, I know it's late and your shift ended a while ago and you were probably trying to wrap up and go home. I didn't want to bother you but there was an incident while they were setting up one of the traffic detours earlier," Bluestreak started talking the moment their optics met, his tone an odd blend of apologetic and excited. "Some mech drove over the blockade, flew right over the helms of the Enforcers on the scene, and they thought they caught him but it turns out it was just a mech who looked like him so they had to let him go and now-"

"Now the real culprit is long gone and Gridlock wants assistance going over the recording and tracking him down," Prowl intercepted the thought smoothly, setting down his stylus.

Bluestreak nodded, doorwings angled high with enthusiasm. "It'd be great if you could, I've seen the video already and it's super cool but it looks like the guy broke at least a dozen regulations and I don't remember them all as well as you do." Prowl felt his own panels tensing with dread as the younger mech continued. "The quality isn't very good, that's why Gridlock asked me first because thought I might be able to make out enough to ID him, but I couldn't. I thought maybe you'd recognize him if he's a repeat offender though, since you know all the priors so well. Do you have time to take a look?"

 _It might not be him,_ Prowl tried to tell himself as he stood to follow Bluestreak to the transport division. _You shouldn’t assume it’s Jazz, there’s no reason to think it isn’t a tourist with too much enthusiasm or another local showoff._ He listened with only half an audial to his running play-by-play as they walked, preferring to view the footage without preliminary expectations or bias but unwilling to cut him off. It had clearly been a spectacular stunt, but the fact that Bluestreak was so impressed was doing nothing to calm the sense of foreboding Prowl felt gathering around him as they arrived at Gridlock's station.

"I found him, he said he'd look at it!" Bluestreak announced. The other officer acknowledged them with a brief huff of his vents as he moved back to make enough room for them to all view the screen.

"Hold on a second," he rumbled, tracking the video back to the beginning and hitting play.

This time Prowl held up a hand to stop Bluestreak’s commentary as they watched the series of clips from several different surveillance and news cameras. At first everything seemed perfectly normal – a short range static traffic camera showed the Enforcers arriving at the interchange and setting up the blockade before directing everyone to take the new detour. The flow of traffic slowed and began piling up, and despite reminding himself once again to keep an open mind Prowl scanned the lanes for any signs of a black and white frame.

As Bluestreak had indicated, however, the video quality was not particularly good, and even more problematic was the limited coverage of the area. Apparently their mech had gotten up onto the median somewhere before surveillance was available, because in the first frames that showed him he was already speeding along on top of it unobstructed. The angle was all wrong to see any identifying marks or plates, but despite the impossibility of running a recognition protocol against the footage, Prowl recognized that alt mode instantly.

 _Damn it Jazz,_ he cursed internally. _Why do you_ do _things like this?_ He continued to watch silently as the image switched to a different view that appeared to be from someone’s low-res dash recorder showing the mech zooming past on his back tires and climbing up on top of the stationary traffic. Another cutaway from some other feed showed him maneuvering onto and along the crane to fly off over the wall of the expressway. That clip ended as he fell below it, the grainy picture replaced by a higher quality montage of the different levels of the highway and transit lines obviously recovered from the Enforcers at the blockade and the news mechs who had arrived for the chase. Despite the better picture however, there was no sign of him in any of the frames. After several minutes the feed finally picked up and focused on a black and white vehicle on the lower concourse, and Prowl knew even without the benefit of having been told that it was the wrong one. Gridlock hit pause as the Enforcers on the screen caught up and pulled him over.

“They arrested the wrong mech, and we have no idea who the real culprit is,” he said unnecessarily, gesturing at the screen with one large hand. “I can’t get an ID off the stuff from before he went over the wall and I don’t see him anywhere in the rest. I’m not even sure what exactly to cite him for if I could find him.” Huffing once more, the large traffic officer turned his chair away from the desk to face Prowl. “To be honest, I’m tempted to just let this one go,” he admitted. “He’s not the only daredevil out on the roads right now blowing off steam and showing off from all the excitement, and we’re stretched thin with all the Festival preparations and the Prime’s arrival tomorrow. Unless you can tell me who we’re looking for, I don’t have the resources to pursue it any further."

“I told him not to give up until I’d asked you, this mech could have seriously hurt someone and he should be held accountable!” Bluestreak said vehemently. “He’s guilty at the very least of disobeying road signs, reckless driving, and endangering fellow motorists!”

“That, and speeding in a work zone,” Prowl said as his tactical computer finished analyzing what he had seen and what he knew of his friend to suggest the most likely scenario and the corresponding infractions. “As well as trespassing, unauthorized access and misuse of highway infrastructure, fare-dodging, and stowing away on a public transit car.” He broke off, frowning. “Not to mention adding to my work load and trying to give me a spark attack,” he finished.

“Pretty sure you can’t actually charge anyone for those last two, though you could add evading arrest if you wanted to,” Gridlock laughed rustily. “Sounds like you think he pulled his vanishing act by climbing up to the transit line and jumping the train.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“No way! That’s incredible!” Bluestreak exclaimed, his previous indignation wiped away with awe. “I mean, that’s incredibly dangerous and illegal,” he added hastily as Prowl looked disapprovingly in his direction.

Gridlock ignored him. “Did you calculate that based just on this tape, or did you recognize him?”

“I recognize his MO,” Prowl said, then hesitated. _I have never covered for him before and I’m not going to start now, but…_ “I also recognize that your concerns about limited resources are valid.”

“Huh.” Gridlock crossed his broad arms and leaned back in his chair to regard Prowl in mild surprise. “That’s not the answer I was expecting from you. Figured you’d be with Bluestreak, insisting I send someone out to chase him down, no matter what.”

“Ideally, yes.” Prowl’s words were terse, his field and frame alike radiating disapproval as he spoke. “Realistically, however, sending an officer to bring the suspect in, question him, and process him would be a lengthy ordeal, particularly if he does decide to evade arrest.” _Which he would,_ he thought, though it went unspoken. “You do not have the time or personnel at your disposal to be chasing down minor offenses, even when the mech in question has committed a whole series of them.” _And considering there’s a fair chance he did this on purpose to get me to come after him, I’m not going to reward his efforts._

“What if he had injured someone though?” Bluestreak asked.

“We are not dealing in hypotheticals. He did not injure anyone, so no further action needs to be taken at this time,” Prowl said firmly. _Besides, I do plan to take_ personal _action later. He’s not going to get away with this without suffering at least some consequences._ “Do you need me to sign off on anything?” he asked.

“Your signature on the report would help if the captain decides to question it,” Gridlock said. “Not likely, but just in case.”  
  
“Of course.” Prowl signed his glyph to the proffered datapad efficiently, handing it back with a second one he pulled from his subspace. “I would appreciate it if you would post these schedule changes in return.”  
  
“Ha! Some mechs aren’t going to be happy with them, huh? Well, I can take the heat of having this come from my desk,” Gridlock grinned. “I hear you’ve got bigger things to worry about anyway,” he added conspiratorially.

“Yes! Anyway! Thank you for taking a look at the video, I still wish we could have caught him, but I guess I should have thought about how much extra work everyone’s doing before I interrupted you. You probably need to get back to it, right? I mean, I saw how many things you still had on your desk. I know you like to work, but you have to finish and go home sometime and you’re already after hours, so we really shouldn’t keep you any longer!”

Bluestreak’s compulsive talking had never come at a better time, Prowl thought. He was completely uninterested in discussing Lockdown or his reasons for entering the Challenge, despite the obvious glee everyone was taking in gossiping and placing bets amongst themselves over it.

“Thank you for your concern,” he said calmly, taking the offered out rather than rising to the bait. “I will be in my office if you need assistance with anything else.”

He heard Gridlock snort as he turned around, the muttered “Yeah, I’m sure Lockdown would like you to _assist_ him in your office” causing his doorwings to stiffen as he left. As innuendos went he’d heard far worse thrown around the precinct, but it always stung to hear them directed at him.

It was so frustrating! Everyone seemed to think it was some kind of fluke or miracle that Lockdown wanted him and was willing to put up with his prickly personality. They were constantly telling him that he should be grateful and grab the opportunity before it was gone because he wasn’t going to get a better offer. The captain in particular had voiced disappointment that he had not accepted the bounty hunter’s initial proposal, and each successive one he had turned down had been met with more and more derision from his colleagues. ‘Oblivious’ and ‘stupid’ were by far the kindest things he had heard them call him; ‘sparkless’ and ‘drone’ were the worst. He’d fought so hard against that reputation, and having Lockdown’s unwanted attentions effortlessly resurrect it hurt more than he had admitted to anyone.

Bluestreak was one of the few who never brought the subject up, be he also rarely spoke out to defend him. The young sniper was too concerned with his own career and reputation to risk voicing an opinion counter to those of the majority of the senior officers, and Prowl could understand and forgive him that. He was glad enough to have someone to talk to, or be talked at, without having to hear about his many personal failings.

It had never bothered Jazz that Prowl had no interest in interfacing or what others called ‘having a good time,’ even though he himself was a poster mech for both. Somehow, against all odds – and Prowl had calculated those odds, many, many times – unlike anyone else Prowl had ever met, Jazz seemed to genuinely like him for who he was rather than who he thought he should be.

That simple and complete acceptance had been very hard to believe at first, and despite his reassurances he had often wondered when the lively entertainer would get bored and decide to find better, more interesting ways to spend his time. But he never did. Ultimately time had proven what words could not: Jazz really and truly considered him his friend.

He’d never tried to trade on that friendship to get out of trouble either, despite occasionally joking about how being friends with an Enforcer had its perks. Prowl didn’t want him to think he was getting a free pass now, but the immediacy of his anger was fading as he contemplated the best way to take him to task over his foolish display. _I’ll have to be creative about it, since official sanctions are no longer an option,_ he thought. _Perhaps I could write up a nice, detailed, professional-looking warrant and present it to him and threaten him with stasis cuffs the next time I see him after the Festival._ He smiled to himself, imagining his reaction. It would serve Jazz right to think he was actually going to arrest him after believing he’d gotten away with it for over a week, and after he was done being mad about it he’d find it hilarious that Prowl had actually pulled a prank on him.

His mood was actually starting to lift until he reached his office. He froze, his expression going blank as he regarded his visitor from the hall. “Lockdown,” he said flatly.

“Prowl,” came the smooth reply. The large mech was currently seated in Prowl’s chair behind his desk, calmly sifting through the reports stacked on top of it. “You weren’t in, so I thought I’d hang around and wait.”

“Well, I’m sorry that you wasted your time. As I’m sure you can see, I am very busy and I don’t have time for visitors right now,” he said, stepping into the room and pausing a few paces away from the desk.  


“Oh, come on,” Lockdown smiled. “Surely you can make time for your future partner?”

“Visitors are visitors, and I do not have time for anyone. Please leave.”

“You had time for that dancer friend of yours earlier,” Lockdown said. “And for the motor mouth, too.”

“Bluestreak is a colleague and I was assisting him with a case. Jazz I told to go, the same as I am telling you. Please leave,” he repeated.

“Sorry, no can do. We’ve got some things we need to discuss.” Lockdown stood and came around the desk, his taller frame looming over Prowl and casting shadows around him. “I trust you heard?”

Prowl stood his ground. “I have, and I think that once again you are wasting your time.”

“Hardly.” Red optics flared above him. “There isn’t any competition to speak of. I think my victory is all but a foregone conclusion.”

“Your victory in the Challenge, perhaps, but my answer will remain the same.”

“Your answer is preliminary,” Lockdown countered, stepping forward again until their plating nearly brushed each other. Prowl knew he would not close that final gap and give him cause to claim uninvited contact, but the rush of warm air from the hunter’s vents over his doorwings was just as stifling and distasteful as any physical touch. “You always said you can’t make decisions without all the facts. How can you keep turning me down without giving it a real chance?”

“Perhaps I can extrapolate based on the data I have and do not require anything else,” Prowl replied. “There is nothing you can do or say in one year’s time that will convince me where the past decade has failed.” _I hope._

Lockdown’s grin went from open and casual to something sharper and much more dangerous. “I admire that confidence, Prowl,” he said. “But I’m willing to bet there is.” His engine revved eagerly, almost obscenely. “You have no idea all the things I have planned for you.”

Prowl could not suppress a slight shudder as his tactical computer began feeding him one possibility after another, each worse than the last, before he managed to override the system and shut it down. Lockdown chuckled. “Then again, maybe you do and you’re looking forward to it more than you let on.”

“No!” Prowl snapped. “I told you, I have no desire to engage in such activities, and even in a courtship you are obligated to honor that!”

“Of course,” Lockdown said in a tone that couldn’t quite decide between conciliatory and condescending. “Don’t worry. I’ll wait until you do want it.” It was more of a dark promise than a reassurance, and Prowl felt a flicker of fear worm its way through his feelings of disgust as he continued to stand, unmoving, in the center of his office.

“I should let you get back to work,” Lockdown said after a long moment of silence. “I have my own preparations to take care of. See you after the race.” He moved away and Prowl finally stopped feeling quite so claustrophobic, though he did not relax his frame with the bounty hunter still in the room. “Wish me luck,” he called pleasantly, turning his head to glance over his shoulder to toss him one final leering grin. “Not that I’m going to need it.” Then he was gone.

Another moment passed in complete stillness as Prowl struggled to maintain his composure. Fighting the sudden urge to scream, he forced himself to walk around the desk and sit down behind it quietly instead of grabbing the edge and violently flipping it over. Nothing he said made any difference to the mech; what good were logic and reasoning in the face of someone who would not listen to or respect them?

He should have seen this coming from their first meeting. Prowl had been working to apprehend a transient mech for theft and property damage, while Lockdown had come to Praxus in order to collect the bounty placed on him for the same in Altihex. After a disastrous initial encounter and several days of working at cross purposes during which their target managed to escape them repeatedly and commit yet another robbery, Prowl had had enough. Instead of continuing to chase the criminal, he’d chased and cornered Lockdown instead, finally cuffing him and threatening to bring him in for obstructing an arrest if he didn’t stop getting in his way.

Lockdown’s response had been a deep, resonating laugh that had unnerved Prowl slightly, though he’d hid his reaction well. In hindsight he knew that Lockdown had set his sights on him in that moment, though at the time he had been to focused on the mission and had brushed off the other mech’s assertion that he was impressed by what he saw in Prowl and that they should try working together as partners. He’d left him behind to go after the target alone, intending to get him later, but the bounty hunter had escaped and disappeared by the time he was able to return, leaving nothing but stasis cuffs for him to pick up.

Over the next several years, Lockdown had made himself more and more of a regular in the city, taking contracts exclusively with the Praxian precinct and hovering around Prowl whenever he wasn’t working, insisting that they would be perfect partners for each other in every sense of the word. Prowl had in fact been as oblivious to the physical nature of his overtures as his coworkers claimed at first, but once he made the connection that he was interested in something beyond a professional relationship, he hadn’t wanted anything to do with him and just wanted to find a way to make him leave for good.

That would have been easier if Lockdown hadn’t made himself so indispensible and well-liked around the precinct. Unfortunately for Prowl, everyone thought he should be trying to think of ways to make Lockdown stay, not to run him off, and the captain in particular had said several things that made Prowl hesitant to upset either of them by rejecting him too harshly.

Prowl vented deeply and began straightening the datapads Lockdown had disturbed. He’d had to get firmer with his rejections over time, but no matter what he said, nothing worked. Jazz had accused him of not standing up for himself and had been stupid enough not to listen when Prowl told him that he was being perfectly clear, but Lockdown wasn’t interested in hearing him. He only listened to his protests enough to form counterarguments, which left Prowl feeling enormously tired whenever he wound up talking with him.

He had thought his spark was going to stop when he found out Jazz had gone to talk to Lockdown for him. The bounty hunter was as much a master of insinuation as a career politician and it had been frighteningly clear to Prowl what he’d wanted to do to him for trying to interfere. He’d let the fight they had over it continue in the hope that Lockdown would decide Jazz wasn’t worth the effort if he thought they weren’t actually all that close.

It had seemed to work, though it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Prowl realized as he tried to distance himself from his friend just how much a part of his life he’d become and how difficult it was to cut him out again. His initial assumption that he would be glad to have more time to himself and be able to accomplish more at work had proven wrong within the first couple of days. He found himself constantly thinking of things he wanted to share with Jazz, wanting to talk to him, to hear the sound of his voice and feel the presence of his EM field. Instead of feeling like he was reclaiming himself he felt like he’d lost a vital component, and it had been a relief when he’d felt safe enough to accept Jazz’s increasingly alarming apologies.

 _Satisfied ain’t happy, Prowl_. His hand tightened around the stylus he’d picked up enough to hear it creak at the remembered the words. Before meeting Jazz, Prowl had been both satisfied and happy with his job and his small circle of acquaintances. He’d never needed or desired anything else and never imagined that would change. Then, somewhere along the way, it had. He was satisfied with his job, but he was _happy_ being with Jazz, and he never wanted it to stop.

And wasn’t that what the definition of a bondmate? Someone you wanted to be with when you were apart, someone you enjoyed being with even if all you were doing was sitting quietly together talking, someone you felt completed your life in a way no one else could? Someone you could be yourself around without fear? He felt all those things with Jazz. He’d even found himself wondering for the first time in his functioning what it would be like to kiss another mech, to kiss Jazz. He leaned back in his chair, lips parting slightly as he imagined how it might feel. Would it be soft? Wet? What would he taste like?

It wasn’t something he could ever ask him for though. Jazz was not the kind of mech who was interested in serious commitments or bondmates. He had been glad when Prowl said he never wanted that with anyone, he liked him that way and wouldn’t appreciate him changing his mind. It had been almost unbearable holding him at arms’ length during that fight; there was no way Prowl could risk finally breaking their friendship and survive losing him entirely. He would learn to be happy being satisfied with what they had.

The sound of footsteps echoing in the hall had Prowl quickly righting his posture as he tried to refocus his processor. Wasting energy on things he could not change was pointless, and he had more immediate problems. After that visit from Lockdown, Prowl wasn’t as sure of himself as he had been earlier in the day. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss his friend’s offer to help; surely between them they could have come up with something!

“Prowl.”

The footsteps stopped outside his door and Prowl nodded to his captain as Barricade came into view. Instead of continuing down the corridor as he’d expected, however, he strode into the office waving a datapad in the air. “I just saw something I thought you should see.”

“Sir?” _It can’t be about the traffic incident, can it?_

“You know I have an active list of all the mechs participating in the Challenge,” he began, dropping the datapad unceremoniously on Prowl’s desk. “You’ll never guess whose name popped up with the latest update.” Before he could pick it up to examine it, Barricade told him. “It’s Jazz.”

Prowl’s hand froze above the screen. “You –” his vocalizer caught and he reset it hurriedly, but captain noticed and his optics narrowed. “You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” he said suspiciously. “Why?”

“It just surprised me, that’s all.” Prowl dissembled. “When I saw him earlier he didn’t say anything about entering the Challenge.”

Barricade fixed him with a look. “That’s too bad. You could have talked him out of it.”

“Might’ve saved his life,” a second voice drawled as Lockdown appeared once more, leaning against the doorframe. “The Challenge of Adaptus isn’t an easy one. Mechs have been known to die in it.”

Prowl opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out, and this time when he tried resetting his vocalizer he got nothing but static. As he watched smug satisfaction settle on the captain’s features and dawning realization slowly twist into furious envy on Lockdown’s tattooed face, he felt the world narrowing around him and going strangely quiet except for the ringing in his audials.

“This changes nothing,” Lockdown growled. “Your little friend can’t stop me. He couldn’t stop an oil leak. I’ll beat him.” He grinned savagely. “I’ll beat him to scrap, and then I’ll beat him to the finish line and claim my prize."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl really needs to talk to Jazz before the Challenge begins, but between all the responsibilities and interference he just can't catch a break.

After barely making it home from the precinct, processor reeling with the knowledge of Jazz signing up to enter the Challenge and what Lockdown had planned for him, Prowl hadn’t been able to recharge at all. Desperate to talk to him he’d kept getting up to pace every time he went to lie down, trying to come up with a way to convince him to withdraw while he still could. The moment it had been late enough in the morning to justify a call he had tried to reach him via comms, but Jazz hadn’t answered. He’d left a message, then another, then several more, but Jazz had never called him back, even after there could be no doubt that he was awake.

Prowl had been about to drive over to see him and force him to talk to him in person when he’d gotten an updated schedule notice from the captain in his inbox. The Prime’s arrival in Praxus required a special security detail and Prowl had initially been assigned to perimeter security after the parade in consideration of how late he’d stayed at the office the night before, but Barricade had changed him to the first shift mobile security team overnight. The memo had arrived just before Prowl could have argued he had not been given enough notice, so there’d been no choice but to report in. Resenting the obvious interference, Prowl had tried one last call to Jazz on his way in before having to switch his personal comm. off to go on duty.

Despite hoping to be able to get away quickly at the end of his shift so he could find Jazz to speak with him about the whole situation, one problem after another had cropped up to prevent him from being able to clock out. First there had been confusion over which unit was supposed to be covering which section of the route from the landing pad to the Primal suite during the parade as a result of several other last-minute schedule changes. He’d eventually gotten everyone sorted out, but the resulting delay in beginning the escorted procession through the city had added over an hour to his shift since he was required to stay until the Prime was settled at their destination and the perimeter security he was meant to be on originally was in place.

Said perimeter security had been upset by the rearranged assignments as well, and everyone had looked to Prowl for his organizational skills to fix it since he was already on-site. He’d been fighting an increasingly powerful processor ache by that point, furious that Barricade had interfered with the schedules he’d worked so hard to optimize. He was sure he’d done it in a deliberate attempt to prevent him from being able to talk to Jazz but he couldn’t prove or do anything about it, which only made him angrier. Not only was it a personal inconvenience, it inconvenienced everyone else on the force and made their security less effective. That would have bothered Prowl even under normal circumstances, but putting the Prime’s safety at risk like that was completely inexcusable.

He’d done his best to make up for the deficits, staying for several more hours and filling in personally until a replacement could be found for one of the mechs who was supposed to be covering the south side of the building when he never turned up for his shift. Stretched thin across the city as they were, the only other officer with the experience and clearance for Primal security had been posted across town. The femme he’d called in had had to wait until her replacement arrived before she could even start heading toward him and with traffic a complete nightmare of detours, reroutes, and temporary pedestrian zones for all the spectators it had been almost evening before she had showed up to relieve him.

Prowl had been feeling like he was running on fumes between lack of recharge and missing his usual midday ration amongst all the chaos, but the day was almost over and he couldn’t focus on anything other than locating Jazz and stopping him before it was too late. He was desperate enough that he had bent protocol to check his personal messages before properly logging the end of his shift to see if he’d missed any calls. Nothing.

He’d been about to sign off for the day and go back to his original plan to find him and have it out face-to-face when an anonymous bomb threat hit the precinct server. Barricade had contacted him mere seconds later, forwarding him the details and insisting that he needed a senior officer to follow up on it and that Prowl was the only available one on duty. It had taken every ounce of his remaining self-control to accept the file with a curt “Yes, sir” rather than telling him that no, he wasn’t on duty, find someone else and hanging up on him to finish punching out.

Regrettably the potential consequences were too great for him not to take the threat seriously, regardless of how he felt. So many things had been going wrong that Prowl found it difficult to believe that all of them could have been contrived by the captain, though he wondered for a fraction of a second as he transformed and took off with sirens wailing whether Barricade would actually be willing to go so far as orchestrating a fake bomb threat just for the sake of a diversion. Hopefully not, though Prowl was relatively confident that he was the only available senior officer because all the others had been mysteriously and conveniently reassigned to other tasks.

A strange surge of relief flooded his systems when a suspicious grey-blue mech bolted from his hiding place beneath a deserted overpass when he saw the approaching Enforcer. Prowl sped after him, shifting quickly through gears to reach his top speed as fast as possible. He’d been so eager to burn off some of his frustration in the chase, his focus narrowing to the road beneath his tires and the target fixed in his high-beams that he didn’t realize his field of vision was literally narrowing, graying out around the edges until the encroaching static eclipsed his sensor feed entirely and he hit a rough patch on the road and spun out, blind and dizzy in a white fog before hitting something hard and everything went black.

***

“Did Prowl finally stop calling?” Switchstep asked as he helped Beatbox put away her keyboard.

“He can’t make personal calls while he’s on duty,” Jazz reminded him. “I don’t have any messages later than the ones I told you about.”

“Huh. If that’s the case I would have expected him to start again after he got off work,” Switchstep pointed out. “I kept expecting to see him all night while we were doing our set when you said you’d been ignoring him.”

“His shift probably ran over, I heard some hackjob called in a bomb threat earlier. Bet he’s stuck dealin’ with the guy and has to doublecheck all the security for the Prime and the race track now.”

“I don’t know, maybe you should have answered,” Beatbox worried. “Or at least called him back?”

“No way.” Jazz shook his head, pausing from helping Blaster disassemble his own equipment. “I know what he wants to talk about, and there’s no point. They’ve got a list at the precinct for who’s in the race, he saw my name show up on it and he wants to get me to change my mind. I’m not going to, so why waste our time?”

“Maybe to tell him not to worry?” she asked. “He’s probably scared you’ll get hurt.”

“He’s probably scared of more than that. It’s in the waiver: ‘by signing here, the Applicant acknowledges and accepts that participation in the Challenge of Adaptus may result in personal injury, ranging from minor to severe in nature, permanent disability or death as the result of improper use of the Course or interactions with other Contestants’,” Jazz recited. “I’ve played on street corners and raves, I can handle myself in a tough spot and I’m not afraid of a few scratches. But I know Prowl,” he grimaced. “He’s gonna be fixating on that ‘death’ part.”

Blaster tapped him on the shoulder. “Little help with this?” he asked, holding out a tangle of cables. “I think Jazz is doin’ the right thing,” he told Beatbox as they kept working. “He knows it’s dangerous, but focusin’ on that won’t help him tomorrow and tellin’ Prowl not to worry won’t stop him from spittin’ out all the statistics his processor can throw at him.”

“Which is a lot,” Switchstep chimed in.

“I guess,” Beatbox said, though she didn’t sound convinced.

“I’ll apologize later if he wants me too,” Jazz said, setting the neatly spooled cable he’d just wound on top of the amp it went with. “But I don’t think it’s going to matter much after I win.”

“And if he does call again tonight?”

“I keep ignoring him, and I expect you all to do the same if he thinks to try one of you. Here BB, catch!” he said, tossing her the rest of the snarled wires. “Finish up for me, would you? I’m gonna hit the berth; I need my beauty rest to bring my best game tomorrow.”

***

As suddenly as the world had disappeared Prowl felt awareness return to him.

“…tter now, but I don’t feel comfortable clearing him for anything other than light duty for the next few days,” an unfamiliar voice was saying. He sent a command to power up his optics and felt them flicker and refocus sluggishly at first before responding at normal speed. Looking around without moving his head, he could see that he was lying on a berth in what appeared to be a standard Clinic & Care Center, though it was impossible to tell the exact one since all CCC facilities were built to the same template. Barricade’s black and purple bulk was partially obstructing the relatively young looking red and white medic he was currently speaking with with.

“What’s the problem? I thought you said the crash was minor.” He was frowning.

“ _Relatively_ minor I said, considering how fast he was driving. That’s not the real reason for my concern though.” The medic cycled his vents nervously, blue visor bright over a white face mask. “He didn’t lose consciousness from the impact – his processor was already crashing before his frame did. His systems look like he hasn’t been recharging properly for the past week, and his fuel levels were in the red.”

Barricade shrugged. “We’re all overworked because of the Festival right now and everyone’s been running a bit short on recharge. He probably just wasn’t able to refuel with everything going sideways today, it’s been the worst day we’ve had so far with all the security problems.”

“He’s a senior officer, he should know how to take care of himself even when–”

“He does know,” the captain cut him off. “The fuel issue was a onetime fluke and he’s got a nice long holiday coming to him when this is all over as far as recharge goes.”

 _What?_ Prowl thought, wondering if he’d misheard. _I never take holidays._

 “I would still like to recommend–”

“Put it in the chart and I’ll take it under advisement,” Barricade interrupted again, holding out a hand and motioning for the datapad the medic was holding. “It’s late, I’d like to get him home once he finishes waking up.”

The medic hesitated. “And if something happens?”

“If he needs to come back for any reason, I’ll make sure he comes in,” Barricade promised smoothly. “Give me the chart, I’m signing him out.”

Plating flaring slightly, the medic nonetheless handed him the datapad. He turned and came over to Prowl as the captain began scrolling through and signing the necessary spaces.

“Hi there. Glad to see you’re rejoining us! You had a bit of an accident,” he explained, checking the monitor next to the berth and nodding slightly at what he saw. “My name is First Aid, you had some minor damage to your exterior plating that I repaired, mostly scrapes and one large dent, but all your internal scans look good. You were severely under-fueled so I topped off your tank, and I hope in the future you do a better job keeping track of your own levels! You can all go once your superior officer finishes signing you out, but I want you to come back if you feel anything that doesn’t seem right.”

“All?” Prowl repeated as the medic assisted him up into a sitting position, maneuvering his doorwings out of the supports with deceptively strong hands and began disconnecting the monitor leads attached to his frame.

“Yeah, all of us,” a new voice purred. Prowl’s optics flared as he whipped his head around to see Lockdown leaning casually against the wall next to the berth. “Aw, what’s with that look? Aren’t you glad to see me?”

 “Your intended was the one who brought you here,” First Aid smiled through his EM field in lieu of his hidden face. “He walked in with you in his arms right after the accident and wouldn’t leave your side for a second!” The young mech clearly found the whole thing very romantic, but Prowl found himself struggling not to purge his newly-filled tanks at the thought of Lockdown carrying him, _touching_ him while he’d been unconscious and unable to defend himself.

Wait a minute.

“My intended?!”

“Yes! I know, I know, it’s not in your file but I saw the interview.” He looked over to Lockdown. “Good luck in the Challenge!” he said happily.

Lockdown smiled warmly, all the charm and charisma he was capable of when he chose completely fooling the impressionable medic. “Why thank you! I like to think my skills are good enough that I don’t need to rely on luck, but I appreciate the support.” He pushed forward off the wall and walked up to the berth to stand next to Prowl where he could feel his field thick and heavy with satisfaction. “And a little luck never hurt anyone. Right, Prowl?”

Prowl didn’t trust his vocalizer, and although he didn’t fully trust his legs yet either he had to put some distance between them, even if it was only the width of the berth. He pushed himself to the edge of it and stood, locking his knees to keep from falling until his balance stabilized.

“It certainly doesn’t,” Barricade said for him when he didn’t answer, returning the datapad to First Aid. “Now, if everything is in order, let’s get you home. The Festival’s going to start soon and the medic says it’s important for you to get what recharge you can.”

“Want some help?” Lockdown asked, offering his one hand to Prowl for support.

“No! Thank you, I am fine.” _I don’t want you touching me again!_ Thinking through what Barricade had said he checked his chronometer with apprehension that quickly began to coalesce into despair. It was hours past when Jazz’s troupe would have wrapped their last performance of the night! The Challenge began at first light in the morning; he’d probably turned in as soon as they’d finished.

Frantically he checked his message box for any missed calls. Still nothing. He wanted to try calling again, but he didn’t trust Lockdown, or Barricade at this point, not to try intercepting the call to eavesdrop. Lockdown was probably planning on following him back and camping on his doorstep so they could leave together for the Festival too, and if that was the case he wouldn’t be able to make a private call even once he was home, let alone sneak away and try to reason with him.

The despair crystallized, sharp edges sending pains through his spark. “I am perfectly capable of walking on my own,” he said testily as Lockdown continued to hold out his arm.

“All right. Just let me know if you need anything,” Lockdown said.

 _I don’t need anything from you other than to be left alone!_ Prowl’s thoughts screamed inside his processor. _I need you to stop following me everywhere I go!_ That was why he’d been there to pick him up and carry him in right away, he realized; he’d been tailing him when he’d gone chasing after that suspect. Had he been following him all day, watching as the day kept getting worse and worse, waiting for him to collapse so he could use the excuse of getting medical assistance for a mech in need to run his filthy hands all over him?

Probably, but there was another likely answer as well. “Was anyone able to apprehend the suspect I was chasing?” Prowl asked, fearing to confirm his hypothesis but still needing to know.

“Lockdown caught him and left him for us. He let us know where to pick him up on his way here with you,” Barricade told him. “Don’t worry, it’s been taken care of.”

 _And Lockdown got to collect another bounty in addition to everything else,_ Prowl fumed silently.

“You should just concentrate on resting for what’s left of tonight so you’re up for the Festival in the morning,” Barricade continued. “The medic wants you on light duty, but I need you at your full capacity until the end of the week. The two of you can cash in some of that accumulated time off afterwards to make up for it.”

So that’s what Barricade had meant by a holiday. _He’s going to force me to take the time off so that I have nowhere to go and nothing to do but stay in that house with Lockdown once the courtship period starts,_ Prowl thought sickly. _He’s going to trap me with him._

“Prowl? Are you feeling all right?” First Aid sounded concerned, and Prowl forced his EM field and his face back into neutral.

“Yes. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Do you need someone to make sure you get home safely?” he asked, and Prowl wanted to kick him.

“I’ll do it,” Barricade volunteered. “I’d feel responsible if something happened since you passed out while driving at work and I’m the one signing you out,” he finished firmly. “Let’s go.”

“I think I’ll come too,” Lockdown added, somehow managing to look worried. “I’d feel awful if something happened to you.”

There was nothing Prowl could reasonably do or say to dissuade either of them, so he followed mutely behind his captain as Lockdown waved a friendly goodbye to First Aid and fell in behind them. Trapped between them both he sent out a silent apology. _I’m so sorry Jazz._ He wanted to cry but somehow his emotions had gone past overwhelming to the point of leaving him feeling numb. _Lockdown is going to kill you in the race tomorrow and it will all be my fault._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Aid doesn't know Lockdown or the true nature of his relationship with Prowl. If he did, he would have been trying to convince Prowl to go to a shelter or into protection rather than cheering his stalker on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Challenge is about to start - all that's left for Jazz to do is to get to the track and deal with Lockdown's attempts to psych him out until the starting gun sounds.

Given his job as a performer, Jazz was no stranger to being the center of attention. While not one of the biggest names in the industry, he and his troupe were nonetheless popular enough to have quite the following, especially locally in Praxus, and dealing with the fans and the media was something that had long ago become part of his life. Still, he felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of mechs and femmes trying to intercept their quartet as they headed to the Festival site early the next morning.

“Good thing you were a last minute entry, huh?” Beatbox commented, casually waving and nodding thanks on Jazz’s behalf to a group of femmes he recognized as regulars at the club. “Imagine how much worse this would have been if you’d signed up a week ago.”

“Yeah, you’d have had to go into hidin’.” Blaster was in the lead parting the crowd with his larger frame. The streets were so packed there was no chance of driving, so they were making their way slowly on foot. “Always amazes me how fast they come up with these things,” he said, gently but firmly pushing aside several mechs with large placards and banners announcing their support for Jazz in the race.

Switchstep looked at the signs as they continued and shrugged. “I think most of them are repurposed promotional material. That one looks like one of the posters for the last competition we were in, just with new glyphs added over the original image.”

“Probably, though I wish they’d picked a better one than that! I looked awful with that paint job!” Jazz said, trying not to let his friends hear his growing concern. He honestly hadn’t considered the publicity of the Festival when he’d made his decision yesterday, and he was belatedly realizing that by entering the Challenge he’d just made the jump from minor celebrity to truly famous – at least until the race was over. _If I can pull this off though the fame’ll last, which could actually work out pretty well for the band,_ he thought. _Though I’m startin’ to worry we didn’t leave early enough. I’m not so important they’ll hold the starting gun for me if I’m late!_

“You looked better than me,” Switchstep threw back, moving in closer to Jazz both for ease of conversation and to better act as an impromptu bodyguard. “Those colors should have been banned, not mandatory.”

“The colors didn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the pattern did,” Jazz said. “Those lines were designed to accentuate a flight frame and I do not have wings!”

“You have doorwings,” Beatbox said, moving to mirror Switchstep and form a complete triangle of protection with the others around Jazz. While the smallest of their group, she was more than capable of fending off mechs twice or even three times her size if she needed to.

“Doorwings don’t count,” Jazz started to argue, but Switchstep cut him off.

“They count, and it’s why I’m glad they’re using the one with just you on it!” he said emphatically. “Although that one from our last concert has us all grouped together too closely to crop anyone out.” The grimace on his face was clear in his voice as he pointed to another poster held by a young mechling standing on a larger mech’s, probably his creator’s, shoulders.

Jazz snorted, stifling a laugh. It did indeed have all four of them on it, but everyone except Jazz was so obscured by bright, stylized glyphs and glittering hand-drawn icons that barely an inch of them was visible past the garish decorations. “That’s okay, looks like they thought your face was prime real estate for pasting text over anyway.”

Blaster looked back at them over his shoulder. “We should probably try to move a little faster,” he said, echoing Jazz’s earlier unspoken concern about the time. “It’ll only get crazier the closer we get, with all the media wantin’ to corner you for a quick statement since you missed the interviews.”

“Scrap, forgot about that,” Jazz said. “I’m startin’ to think my processor was on standby when I filled out that application.”

“Nah, just focused on what was really important.” Blaster smiled at him. “Your processor was exactly where it needed to be.”

 _On Prowl,_ Jazz thought as they picked up their pace, no longer bothering to acknowledge the cheering throngs waving and calling out to them. _I wasn’t thinking about anything but Prowl and getting him out of this mess._

As they wound beneath the streetlights and the pre-dawn sky, Jazz cringed internally. Despite what he’d told Switchstep, he’d been expecting Prowl to call again too last night and had begun to worry when he hadn’t. The bomb threat shouldn’t have taken that long to clean up after, especially since he’d seen on the news that the Enforcers hadn’t found any actual explosives. Prowl was never one to give up on something without a resolution, so it wasn’t like him to suddenly go silent after trying so many times to reach him without success.

Jazz had been feeling guilty enough after Beatbox’s scolding that he’d left his line open instead of blocking it when he’d laid down to recharge last night. He’d drifted off still waiting for a chime on his comm. or a knock at the door. Neither had come. Had something happened to Prowl that prevented him from calling? That thought was what prompted Jazz to check on how the threat had played out, to see if anyone had been hurt, but there was no report of anything other than a minor chase that had ended with the suspect safely in custody.

The only other explanation he’d been able to come up with was that Prowl had gotten angry enough with him about the whole thing that he had decided to stop speaking to him entirely rather than demanding an explanation.  He’d been nervously turning that over in his processor, wondering if he should try to find him before the race or if he should just hope that he’d give him a chance and hear him out when it was all over when Blaster had come to see if he was awake and ready to leave with them.

His friend had immediately picked up on his concern and told him to stop working himself up over it. “’S too late now, the race starts in a coupla hours and that ain’t enough time to go lookin’ for him,” he’d said. “Let’s just get ready, get to the track, and see if you can catch a glimpse of him before the big event starts. That way you’ll at least know that he’s okay.” He’d paused in the doorway as he turned to leave. “You did try callin’ him back, didn’t you?” he’d asked.

Feeling somewhat foolish, Jazz had pulled up Prowl’s frequency as soon as Blaster was out of the room. The line was active, which was an immediate relief, but Prowl hadn’t answered. It was too early for him to have left for the Festival yet, which only solidified Jazz’s fear that he was angry with him and returning the favor of ignoring his call. He almost hung up when the comm. transferred over to recording, but thought better of it at the last moment. Instead, left a message saying that he was sorry he had avoided talking to him but that he had to do this because someone needed to take care of him if he wasn’t going to take care of himself.

He’d choked a little at the end and had to break off the call before the other reason could come spilling out of his vocalizer. If he was finally going to admit his feelings to Prowl, it was going to be in person after being crowned Champion, not in a voicemail message.

That thought was firmly in his mind now as they finally came upon the official Festival grounds and the fans and well-wishers gave way to reporters and newsmechs. There was no way he was going to let Prowl hear it from a broadcast sound bite either, and that was what all of them were clamoring at him for.

“And here he is, late-comer Jazz, musician and dancer extraordinaire!” A vibrant green mech with muted yellow and orange accents had pushed his way to the front of the pack, the red light of a camera blinking beside his optics as he thrust a sound recorder forward. “Everyone is just dying to know – why did you put off announcing your participation so long? Was it an impulse decision? Or was it all part of a secret plan to surprise your love? You wouldn’t be the first! I bet your fans are all hoping that you pick one of them if you win!” He spoke at such a rapid-fire pace that even if Jazz had been inclined to comment he probably couldn’t have gotten in a word. “Unless it isn’t a fan that’s caught your attention? Perhaps you’re hoping to take one of your bandmates as your bondmate?”

That almost broke Jazz’s calm, but Blaster stepped between them before he could snap. “Sorry, mech, but we’re runnin’ a bit behind on account o’ all the love and support we been getting’ on the way here. ‘Scuse us, would you?” Putting one large hand on Jazz’s shoulder he steered him away to the left, Switchstep and Beatbox falling in behind to keep him at bay.

Several more reporters tried to swarm them, the recording lights and camera flashes a dizzying spectacle of light only surpassed by the overlapping chaotic babble of voices that surrounded them on all sides. Jazz dialed down his audials and polarized his visor to ward off the potential processor ache from all the input and pasted on the same relaxed, careless, confident smile that he used on stage, wishing the expression felt as comfortable as it usually did on his face. This was above and beyond anything he’d anticipated, and for the first time in ages he felt the first icy fingers of stage fright.

 _I wasn’t thinking about this as a show,_ he thought, _but this is going to be the biggest performance of my life. And it’s all going to be solo from here on out._

They reached the end of the public zone and stopped, Blaster saying something Jazz couldn’t make out until he adjusted his audials back up. “Sorry, what was that?” he asked.

“I said, don’t tense up,” he repeated, squeezing Jazz’s shoulder plating lightly where he’d been holding onto him before letting go. “Don’t let the crowd rattle you.” He smiled, and Jazz heard over a short-beam private line, [The only audience that matters is an audience of one.]

[Did you see him?] Jazz rushed to ask, sounding slightly desperate and not caring. He was grateful to his friends beyond measure for stepping up so smoothly the way they had to shield him, but Blaster and Switchstep were both larger than he was and he hadn’t been able to see past them or the teeming masses with their cameras and signs to have a hope of spotting Prowl on the way here.

Outwardly Blaster gave no response, but across the line answered, [He’s here, Jazz. I haven’t spotted him yet, but I know he’ll be waiting at the finish line.]

Beatbox grabbed his hand and shook it firmly. “You can do this!” she declared confidently. [There’s no way you’ll let him down,] she added, her expression softening slightly as she stepped back. [He means too much to you for that to happen.]

Switchstep’s face when Jazz turned to him was much more solemn. [Be careful and be smart.] He fixed him with a stern look. [And it might not hurt to think _like_ Prowl once and a while instead of just thinking _about_ him.]

[Says the mech who’s always trying to copy _my_ style!] Jazz teased. [Prowl himself said I was one of the most creative and adaptable mechs he knew, and that’s exactly what this course is all about. Whatever it throws at me, I’ll find a way.]

With a final wave to his friends and one last [Thanks for all your help guys!] Jazz left them behind to find places in the stands surrounding the main stadium and went to join the other contestants gathering at the starting line. He checked his chronometer as he scanned the group, glad to see that there was still time, but not too much, left before the Challenge began. He’d have felt nervous if they’d cut it too close, but standing around waiting would only give him a chance to start worrying.

His first cursory glance did not reveal Lockdown himself, though he saw several others that looked like they would be more competent than the predictions of there being little to no real competition for the favorite to win had implied. While he didn’t know the exact configuration of this particular course, Jazz had a general idea of what to expect from watching during Festivals past. The Challenge of Adaptus consisted of several sections, each of which tested the racers in different ways and favored different traits, and the advantage in the first segments always went to the fastest frame types. Looking at the others, Jazz was sure that some of them had high enough top speeds to take an early lead over both himself and Lockdown, though later parts of the course would see them struggling to keep it.

Mentally assessing who he thought would be his biggest opposition outside of Lockdown, Jazz had just started searching for familiar black and white plating when he heard someone approaching with long, confident strides. “Looking for someone?” a deep voice drawled. “You weren’t worried I wasn’t going to show up, were you?”

Jazz turned and looked up to meet the optics of his rival, expression as flat as he could make it. “I’d hoped,” he answered briskly. “Did you have something to say to me? I’m pretty sure I said everything I needed to last time we talked.”

“Really? Because I remember what you told me.” Lockdown’s plating shifted slightly, bristling and settling in a gesture that could read either as a relaxing shrug or a threatening mantle. “You said to stay away from Prowl. The way you phrased it, it almost sounded like you thought you could do something about it if I decided not to listen.” He paused for a moment, gesturing to their surroundings. “Is this what you had in mind?”

“I’m not playing, Lockdown,” Jazz said firmly. “I’ve got nothin’ to say to you unless you want to withdraw now.”

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding the least bit sorry at all. “Not an option.”

“Then we’re done here.”

“Oh no,” Lockdown said, leaning down so their faces were almost level. “We’re just getting started.” A dangerous light burned behind his optics, and Jazz suddenly felt like he was dealing with a completely different and more frightening mech than the one he’d confronted before. “You may not have announced why you entered the race, but we both know the reason. He’s standing right over there.”

Red optics flickered sideways, and despite not wanting to give him the satisfaction Jazz followed his line of sight. Sure enough, there was Prowl at last, standing with several other Enforcers at the base of the central podium. “Mighta known a stalker like you would know where he is at all times,” Jazz said, hoping to cover the fact that he had not known himself and his relief to see him online and functioning, though at this distance he couldn’t tell how upset he might be.

“I know where he is because we arrived together.” Jazz’s engine gave an involuntary angry growl at the thought and Lockdown’s grin widened as he straightened to loom over him once again. “It’s not stalking to escort someone who just had a serious accident, now is it?”

“Accident?” Jazz knew he was baiting him, knew he was trying to shake his concentration and that he shouldn’t believe anything Lockdown said, but he couldn’t help himself. “What accident?”

“He crashed yesterday chasing the mech who phoned in that bomb threat. Fortunately,” he chuckled, the oily sound only making Jazz tense further, “I was nearby to take the criminal down and bring Prowl into the nearest CCC for help right away.”

 _He’s lying, he’s lying, he has to be lying,_ Jazz told himself, this time refusing to ask. _There was no report of an officer getting injured in the chase, and Prowl’s not hurt, he’s right there and he’s fine!_

“Don’t believe me?” Lockdown continued when Jazz remained silent. “Fine. You don’t have to. I still got to run my hands all over him to check for critical injuries in the field before taking him in my arms and carrying him to the clinic where I waited by his berthside for him to online so I could make sure he was all right.” He sighed dramatically. “The medic felt he shouldn’t be left alone so I took him home and spent the night, all out of the goodness of my spark and concern for his well-being.”

He sounded more and more smug with every word, and Jazz was sure he was visibly vibrating in place by the end of it. “You’re lying!” he snapped. “I saw the coverage of the bomb threat, there was no accident! And Prowl would never let you into his house!”

“Oh, there was an accident all right.” Lockdown laughed. “The news didn’t get a hold of it because I asked Captain Barricade not to make a big scene out of it for Prowl’s sake. Wasn’t that thoughtful of me?”

Jazz felt a sinking feeling in his tanks. That was actually plausible. “You never went to his house,” he insisted again, ignoring the rest of Lockdown’s comment.

“Want me to prove it?”

“You can’t, because it didn’t happen!”

“Didn’t it?” Lockdown activated the external speaker for his comm. and Jazz found himself listening to a clip of his own voice playing through the larger mech’s systems.

“…I can’t and I won’t let that creep get away with this! Let me take care of you, Prowler. I..let me do this for you. I need to do this for you.”

The bounty hunter’s EM field flared with triumph as Jazz’s vision whited out for a moment, jaw going slack. “That’s…that’s from the message I left this morning!” He felt his hands curl into fists. “I left that on Prowl’s personal line. _How did you get that?_ ”

“How do you think?” Lockdown grinned. “I was in a position to overhear when you called.”

“Overhear or intercept?!” Jazz took a step forward. “You weren’t in his house, you were casing it, sitting on him so he couldn’t leave and blocking any transmissions anyone tried to make! He wasn’t ignoring me, he didn’t even know I’d called thanks to you!” He pulled his arm back, raising his fist as he cursed himself. _If I’d just picked up in the first place when he called me yesterday!_

Before he could throw the punch however, Lockdown’s cruel expression melted away and he backed up a few steps. “Hold on a moment!” he cautioned. “There’ll be time enough for that on the track.”

“What if I don’t want to wait?” Jazz growled.

“Then you’ll get yourself disqualified for attacking a fellow racer before the Challenge actually starts. You see,” he explained, some of the wicked glee returning, “if you hit me before the starting gun sounds, that’s attempted sabotage. Once it goes off though, anything’s fair. You did read the waiver, didn’t you? Or did you just sign it all blindly because you were too busy thinking you had a chance with Prowl?” The big black and green mech raised the large hook on his arm up to inspect it. “You want revenge? I’ll gladly give you satisfaction.” The metal gleamed. “Just as soon as the sun rises.”

Brought up short, Jazz lowered his hand as one of the officials, a pale peach and teal femme, came up to them. “Please follow me to the starting blocks,” she said. “The Prime is about to give his speech and then the Challenge will begin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am heading off into a land without internet for a week of vacation and will be back late next Sunday, so the next chapter will be slightly delayed from my usual update time and I may be a little bit slow responding to comments. Thank you for your patience!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, it starts. Let the race, and the casualties, begin!

The Prime's speech could have been about the proper consistency for energon gels for all the attention Jazz paid to his words. Despite not registering any of what he said, however, he was glad for the brief pause to collect his thoughts and calm down. Lockdown had almost caused him to lose his temper with his well-worded taunts, and Jazz knew he needed to stay in control if he was going to get through this in any condition to cross the finish line.

As they stood there, waiting those last few moments for the sun to rise, the possibility that he might not make it there at all finally started filtering into his consciousness. An icy dread settled in his lines as the full implications of Lockdown's promise hit him. He glanced sideways behind his visor without turning his helm and saw the hunter's heavy frame buzzing with anticipation; the larger mech was just barely holding himself in check, eager for the go ahead that would allow him free reign to do anything and everything he wanted to do to Jazz.

 _I played right into his hands_ , Jazz realized, fixing his optics forward on the course and wondering if his sudden fear was visible to everyone. He tried to force his tension cables to remain loose and relaxed, releasing the armor plates that had reflexively tightened against his frame in what he hoped looked like restless shifting. He'd been so busy worrying about what Lockdown had planned for Prowl after the race that he hadn't stopped to consider what he might have in store for him in it. Given how quick he'd been to keep him from disqualifying himself, he would be willing to bet that Lockdown had bigger ideas than simply finishing first.

If that was all he'd been after, letting Jazz eliminate himself before they had even started would have taken care of everything. The only reason to want him to actually participate in the Challenge was so that he could use the fact that participants were allowed to attack each other to do something more final in nature to him without having to face any consequences, and the reality that in a matter of minutes he was going to have a trained killer out for his energon with only his own wits and resources standing between them was paralyzing. His engine seized, and all at once he found himself struggling to stay upright.

The crowd cheered as the Prime gave his final blessing. Jazz silently begged his joints to move without giving out under him. _Primus and Adaptus help me_ , he prayed, glancing over to the stands desperately for one last look at Prowl. When he spotted him, he was struck by the unexpected sight of the same helpless fear he was feeling mirrored on his friend's normally stoic face. Like a bubble bursting Jazz felt his panic disperse, replaced by diamond-hard resolve.

 _No way I'm lettin' that slag-eater win this race_ , he thought fiercely. _And no way I'm makin' Prowl watch him tear me to scrap, either_. His systems unbound themselves and he raised one hand smoothly in a short salute. Confidently he took the last steps up to the starting line with the others, ready to meet the daylight as it broke over the horizon to the sound of the starting gun.

With a roar of engines loud enough to down out any further thought, they all launched forward as one onto the waiting track.

***

“Sir? Are you all right?” Bluestreak's concerned voice broke through Prowl's concentration as he watched the majority of the pack drop into vehicle mode right out of the gate to make the most of the opening section of the Challenge where there was an actual level track. Jazz and Lockdown were both immediately overtaken by several of the others, the sprinters and the one flyer working to gain as much of a head start as they could now before they were forced to slow down further on.

“I am fine,” Prowl replied distractedly, the tactical portion of his processor busily mapping out the most likely places along the track for Lockdown to start whittling down the competition. He had spotted several already, and that was just the parts he could see. Once the racers moved out of the stadium into the city and beyond, Prowl would be limited to the broadcast coverage following them along the course just like the rest of the spectators and unable to assess the path for potential ambushes before they could occur.

Not that there was any use in worrying about his ability to analyze the track since there was no way to transmit anything he might see to Jazz. External communication was prohibited for the participants once the Challenge was underway, and even if that weren't the case Prowl knew that large portions of the course ran underground outside the range of regular unmodified comm. frequencies. That was one of the reasons it was relatively rare for flight frames to enter the Challenge of Adaptus, in fact: most of them couldn't handle the long, unbroken enclosed spaces that made up later sections of the course. If the red and orange transport flyer currently in second behind the gray and green racer made it that far, it would be interesting to see how he handled it.

Whether he made it that far or not would be largely dependent on what order Lockdown decided to start taking out his opponents. Prowl might wish it otherwise with all his spark, but he knew how the bounty hunter approached his missions and how he liked to operate. He would want to take his time with Jazz, to drag it out and make it hurt to punish them both, and that meant ensuring there would be no distractions before he really got started. He was far too thorough to risk anyone sneaking through to pull off a surprise victory behind his back while he was busy settling their score.

“-vn't heard a word I've said, I can tell, I'm used to mechs tuning me out and I know what it looks like.” Prowl realized that Bluestreak had kept talking, and he tore his gaze away from the track just long enough to catch his optics in acknowledgement before turning back.

“I apologize, Bluestreak. It was not intentional. Perhaps I am still recovering from the events of last night.” Which was true, at least in part; once again he had not been able to recharge at all, and he was feeling sick with exhaustion in addition to being sick with worry. On top of his concern for Jazz, thoughts of Lockdown carrying him to the clinic and whatever else he might have done had tormented him all night, and he hadn't even felt comfortable enough to make use of his washrack to scrub the feeling of ghostly hands off his plating knowing the mech himself was waiting somewhere nearby.

“Last night? What happened last night?” Bluestreak sounded genuinely confused as though he hadn't heard anything about it. Caution had Prowl pulling up the incident report the captain had written on his behalf to see what the official story was before answering.

“Apparently nothing,” he said somewhat bitterly as he saw that his involvement had been omitted entirely. According to the readout, Prowl had ended his shift just before the bomb threat had been called in as he'd intended. There was no mention of him passing out or crashing in pursuit of the suspect, only a note that the precinct had enlisted Lockdown's aid in bringing him in to cover for the shortage of officers. He supposed he should be grateful that the accident wouldn't appear on his permanent record, but he couldn't bring himself to feel anything other than resentment over discovering yet another example of Barricade's manipulations.

The junior officer looked like he wanted to ask what he meant by that, but the crowd around them burst into a flurry of shouts and cheers in response to a spectacular maneuver by one of the leading speedsters, and if he said anything Prowl missed it as the race once again fully captured his attention.

***

As he'd taken off, Jazz had followed the example of his peers and taken to his tires. His transformation sequence was tailored for flash above function, but one thing it did have going for it was that it was designed to be executed while he was in motion. A couple of running steps and he triggered the change as he leapt forward, momentum carrying as he hit the surface of the road with his wheels already spinning.

Normally he'd be watching his audience for their reactions and applause after a move like that, but as he pushed his engine for a burst of acceleration, his only concern was for his immediate surroundings on the track and where the others were relative to him. Just like he had predicted, several of them darted ahead quickly and he let them, well aware that he didn't have the ability to overtake them here.

What did surprise him was Lockdown's apparent disinterest in him. After their little talk he'd been expecting to have to start watching his bumper and fielding attacks right away, but after transforming into his own formidable vehicle mode from a standing start Lockdown had swiftly pulled away without making any moves toward him. Jazz set a portion of his processor to reassessing him while the rest focused on the immediate task of not crashing as they entered the first set of turns.

Obviously it was only a matter of time before he started going for him; that he hadn't done so right away was more of a concern than a relief. _That just means he ain't gonna to be satisfied taking me out in a quick collision or runnin' me into a wall_ , Jazz decided, braking slightly to avoid hitting the one curving out toward him and slowing down a little as he swung into a wide right behind a boxy white and yellow mech. _He'll probably mostly hold off until he can make it personal and permanent_.

That suggested something rather interesting, and as the track straightened out again briefly Jazz found himself ironically grateful to be the focus of the bounty hunter's vendetta. The odds of Lockdown taking the opportunity to simply win the race if he got a good lead were vanishingly small against the likelihood of him stopping and lying in wait for Jazz, using the Challenge as the perfect chance to get away with murder - literally.

 _Probably not the kind of thought that'd cheer most mechs up_ , Jazz thought, but he couldn't deny that he felt a weight lift from his spark. _If he's determined to have it out with me, then that means he's not focused on Prowl, and that's one less thing for me to worry about._

Still, while he could expect Lockdown not to finish the race without dealing with him first, he shouldn't let him get far enough ahead to start setting up traps if at all possible. His best bet was probably to trail just far enough behind him to keep track of him and spot any attacks as he launched them for as much of the race as long as he could before skirting around him at the end. After all, he didn't need to confront him to accomplish his goal. Jazz succeded as long the first mech across the line wasn't Lockdown, even if that mech wasn't himself. Provided he survived, that is. He knew his friends were all hoping for him to be crowned Champion, and Jazz couldn’t deny that he’d like to win that chance to finally reveal his feelings, but protecting Prowl was what mattered, not claiming him.

Coming up on another sharp turn, Jazz took the chance and let himself drift around the bend to avoid losing any more speed, even though he was already driving dangerously fast considering he didn't have the route memorized. Finding that perfect balance between going as fast as possible while still leaving enough room for reaction time on an unfamiliar track was something even professional racers struggled with, and Jazz might be a good trick driver but he was no Blurr.

He did need to keep up though. While he was larger and heavier than Jazz, Lockdown also had a more powerful engine to match his frame and the black and green muscle car was taking the turns better than he was, pulling ahead despite their top speeds being fairly comparable.

 _Almost as if he does have the whole thing memorized_ , Jazz realized as he watched him steer perfectly into the next turn. Perhaps he'd spent the time just before the Challenge surveying the first part of the course and running through it mentally while everyone else had been listening to the Prime and Jazz had been busy freaking out. He probably had a lot of practice creating maps and optimizing his driving on the spot from chasing down criminals, and Jazz felt foolish for not having thought to try adapting his ability to learn and come up with new choreography to do the same. _Too late now. Good thing I'm just as good at improv._

No sooner had he the thought crossed his processor when Jazz felt a slight tremor off the wall beside him and he impulsively swung to the outside of the track around the sharp left ahead instead of trying to hug the inner edge in response. It turned out to be a wise move as he rounded the bend and passed the white and yellow mech that had been just ahead of him, no longer moving after a collision with another mech with a red paint scheme that carried them both into the barrier. The vibration from their impact had come just soon enough to warn Jazz so he could avoid joining them in their tangle of bent plating and leaking fuel lines.

He couldn't tell what had caused the accident as he sped past, but it looked nasty enough that the red mech at least was out of the running already before they'd even made it out of the stadium.

The speed they'd been going at made it a worse wreck than Jazz had seen in a long time, and the smell of burnt rubber and the tang of spilled energon wasn't something that transmitted through a vidscreen on the news. It was completely different being that close, even for the couple of seconds it took to leave them behind.

A flicker of his earlier fear made a reappearance as he heard another mech plow into the two sidelined racers with a sickening _grrrunch_ of metal and felt several small pieces of shorn-off armor and other shrapnel ping off his rear bumper. Jazz ruthlessly forced it down and kept driving, refusing to look back. _Thinking about the bad stuff won't stop it from happening_ , he told himself. _Only paying attention and being smart'll do that, so don't go wastin' processor power on all the ugly what-ifs. Focus on the what-is_.

He didn't need to have the course memorized to know they were almost out of the stadium now though, and that meant things were about to change. The lanes narrowed as they came through the final twists, and Jazz let out a yelp of surprise as Lockdown suddenly slowed ahead of him, sliding back into position alongside him and matching their speeds effortlessly.

“Nice work dodging that pile-up earlier,” he called out. “Guess you're a little better at this than I thought.”

“As little as you think of me that probably isn't saying much,” Jazz shot back.

“I was just trying to give credit where it's due,” he said, engine rumbling aggressively as they approached the final straightaway before the track lead out into the city. “You don't have to be so confrontational.”

“No, that's your job.” Jazz tried to gauge the rapidly shrinking distance to the gate. It was wide enough for them to pass through side by side - if he wanted to hand Lockdown the option of slamming him into the side of it. He tried putting on another burst of speed but once again Lockdown kept pace with him.

“My job, huh?” He chuckled, the sound blending with the hum of his tires on the pavement and reverberating through the air. “Guess I should start living up to your expectations then.”

 _Oh, sla_ \- Jazz swore internally as the heavy armored car veered sharply toward him, cutting off the curse as he cut his engine and engaged his brakes, hard. The resulting squeal as they strained to absorb his momentum covered his pained cry as Lockdown's rear bumper clipped his front as he surged forward, knocking into him hard enough to crack his left headlight and gouge a deep rent through his paint into the metal beneath.

His axles burned with the heat build-up from his brakes, but Jazz forced his engine to turn back over into high gear with hardly a pause to let them cool. _Work through it, work through it_ , he recited, the sharp pain fading to a dull ache as he pushed ahead. _You've danced through worse before!_

He steadfastly ignored the small voice telling him he was going to have a lot more than this before everything was over as he chased after Lockdown past the boundaries of the stadium.

The road widened once more as the Challenge made use of the existing streets of Praxus to bridge the distance between the opening racetrack and the real obstacle part of the course, most of which was constructed beneath the city. It was obvious that some efforts had been made to modify the route to make it more difficult to traverse, but Jazz knew where all the twists and turns were now on the familiar highway and he laughed out loud at the idea of traffic barriers slowing him down.

 _Clearly they didn't see me the other day_ , he thought gleefully, using his speed to swerve up the side wall of an underpass in what would ordinarily be a completely illegal maneuver to pass the car in front of him as they came up on the central downtown interchange. _Maybe if they'd seen the dry run they'd've used something a bit more challenging than sandbags and traffic cones!_

Most of the turnoffs, including all of the upper levels, were marked by signs to indicate that they were not part of the course, but the lower and mid-level eastbound branches were both open. Lockdown had already peeled off into the lanes heading for the mid-level, following the majority of the others including the one flyer who had opted for the relatively more open path sandwiched between the layers of the road. Jazz didn’t hesitate for a second in choosing the lower concourse; the mid-level might have better visibility and gentler turns, but Jazz knew which was the shorter, if more difficult to navigate, route to the eastern border.

He checked his rearview and caught sight of two racers following him down the ramp. Wondering whether they were locals who knew the roads as well as he did or if they were just hoping for better odds along the less popular path, Jazz noted their locations before turning his focus back to the road. He powered up his headlights, the cracked one flickering before staying on as the bright lights of the stadium receded behind them.

They quickly came upon a tunnel lit only by its emergency lighting rather than full lamps, and he congratulated himself on his foresight. It wasn't that long, but there were several small drums and barricades clearly illuminated by his highbeams littering the lanes. Jazz wove his smaller frame around them easily, though the muffled thuds behind him indicated at least one of his tails had not been quite as agile.

Coming out the end of tunnel he heard a crash above as well and he spared a quick glance upward. A portion of the higher lanes was visible before they curved back in line over the lower ones after going around the building the tunnel ran underneath. Jazz caught a glimpse of Lockdown as he whipped along it, not even trying to avoid the lightweight deterrents. He was actually aiming for them, using his reinforced grill to knock them into the air at the mechs in front of him.

A dislodged drum landed heavily outside the guard rail on his right and Jazz shuddered as it struck, grateful for the thick shield of the road above him while it lasted. Soon the paths would break away again as the lower level passed through a giant shopping multiplex while the upper levels detoured around it. He hoped the distance between them where they diverged would be enough to keep Lockdown from trying to launch anything down at him.

Either luck was on his side or Lockdown had other targets, because he got past the split without having to field any unpleasant projectiles. As soon as the huge series of interconnected buildings came into view, however, Jazz realized there was a problem with his original plan to use the special lanes at the center of the highway. The so-called express lanes bypassed the majority of the exits along the way and, more importantly, the speed strips spaced between them. Drawing closer, he could see that additional debris had been strewn across the local lanes as well; containers and construction supplies from the remodel the north side was currently undergoing, most likely. All the more reason to avoid them since he could see that the center was clear, except for one tiny detail: the express lanes ran in different directions depending on the time of day to manage traffic flow, and right now the series of gate arms along the entrance were all closed against eastbound vehicles.

 _There's no reason for that! None!_ Jazz let out an ineffectual frustrated honk. _There isn't a single vehicle in the westbound lanes right now!_

The situation left him with only a couple of options and just seconds to decide. He didn't have the mass to plow through the gates, so he could either climb over them and hope to make up enough time to cover what he'd lose getting in and out again at the other end of the mall driving in the unobstructed lanes, or he could give the idea up as a bad one and deal with the slowdowns in the locals.

 _Or_ , he thought with a sudden flash of crazy inspiration, _I could just do this_.

Playing once more on his ability to shift between forms mid-motion, Jazz aimed himself straight at the divider between the lanes and transformed, rolling into a series of handsprings and vaulting up on top of it. The speed he'd been traveling at in alt mode was barely manageable in root form; he nearly cartwheeled off the wrong side of the wall before he was far enough along it to roll into the express lanes past the gates as he shifted back.

Jazz let out an exhilarated whoop as he got his tires firmly under him again, though he also sent up a silent thanks that that had worked as he regained control of his frame. _That's definitely the kind of stunt Switchstep would be hanging his helm over_ , he laughed, shaking off the lingering dizziness from the ordeal he'd just put his gyros and stabilizers through and the sting of the inadvertent road burn on his shoulder. _I wish I could see the look on his face right now!_

***

"HE MADE IT!!!" Beatbox shrieked, grabbing at Switchstep's arms to pull his hands away from his face. "Look, he made it!"

Switchstep peeked through his fingers cautiously before lowering them to glare at the giant screens projecting live footage from the course across the stadium.  "Great. He managed to get into the express lanes in one piece. Barely. Now he just has to get out again without reducing himself to spare parts."

"So little faith, mech," Blaster admonished, though there was tension flooding out of his frame too now that Jazz was safely back on the road. "The mech knows what he's doing."

"He has no idea what he's doing," Switchstep countered, grabbing Beatbox by the shoulders to stop her jumping around, but he sounded more frightened than angry. "Unless what he's trying to do is make Lockdown's job easier."

"The only way he's going to win is if he takes some risks, but he's not stupid," Beatbox said, settling down and reaching up to cover his hands reassuringly. "He heard what you said to him."

"Really? I haven't seen him doing a whole lot of thinking so far."

"Then you ain't looking," Blaster said. "There's a difference between playing it safe and playing it smart, and I've seen him makin' plenty of smart decisions so far."

"How would you fine mechs like to make a smart decision of your own?" a slick voice interrupted. "What do you say, care to make a small wager on the outcome of the Challenge?" The mech it belonged to, a spindly thing in several shades of orange and purple, skated into view around Switchstep. He wavered on his wheeled feet, almost overbalancing as he leaned forward to tap his wrist unit conspiratorially. "I've got all the odds right here! Place your bets now before your favorites get eliminated!"

They all followed the finger he pointed up at the screen where the leader board was displayed just in time to watch another name gray out. One of the other monitors showed its owner lying in a crumpled heap, the tips of his orange wings bent and trembling with the aftershocks of a collision with a support pillar as a team of medics made their way up to him.

"That makes the fourth mech Lockdown's taken out already," the bookie said helpfully. "You can see why he's the favorite to win! But there are some pretty good odds on the late entry, Jazz, as well! Triple your winnings if he takes the crown and his Choice matches your bet! So far the most popular vote is for-"

"Seven," Switchstep interjected.

"Seven?" He broke off his pitch, confused. "Seven what?"

"Lockdown was behind seven of the eight eliminations so far," he clarified. "That three car pileup was his fault too; he fired grease pellets under white-and-yellow's tires. The only dropout he isn't responsible for is that old rustbucket who sprang an oil leak a hundred paces in from walking too fast." He looked down at the tiny mech scathingly. "I'm not the gambling type, but if I was I wouldn't place my bets with a bookie who quotes bad figures."

"We're not interested," Blaster said, slightly more polite but just as firm in his dismissal. "Maybe you should check your facts and see if you can find someone who is."

The mech's optics flashed indignantly, but he didn't argue. Pivoting on the spot, he zipped away and disappeared almost instantly among the crowd.

"Aw, why'd you chase him off? We could've made easy money on that last one!" Beatbox joked.

"No we couldn't," Blaster shook his helm. “That’d be betting with insider info, and besides, it's not our place to say who he's racing for. Jazz would never forgive us."

"I know, I know," she pouted. "You could've at least let him say who everyone thinks it is though. I was curious!"

"If you want to know that badly I'm sure you can find another bookie," Switchstep shrugged. "I think I'll just stick with watching to see whether or not Jazz makes it out...of...the express lanes..."

***

Balancing on his right side wheels like he was scaling a crane arm to escape another traffic jam, Jazz was currently driving along the top of the narrow dividing wall he’d flipped over earlier as the express lanes ended. With only a few lengths ahead before the surface dropped out from under him, he revved his engine and threw himself into the air, sailing back onto the main road to come down just shy of landing on the final rumble strip.

Unfortunately he also just missed landing on a mostly blue mech as he came up right behind him. He seemed thoroughly startled by Jazz falling down practically on his hood and let out a blat of inarticulate static as he knocked into him. Jazz cursed as well, annoyed that he’d missed the mech accelerating when he’d timed his jump.

The blue mech wasn’t one of the two Jazz had spotted following him earlier, though the tan vehicle of that pair was still visible not far behind and gaining. With how poorly they'd been handling in the tunnel he hadn’t thought there was much of a chance either of them would clear the cluttered lanes through the mall that quickly, but apparently he’d been wrong. _Teach me to make assumptions_ , he admonished himself, wincing as he felt the mech behind him bounce against his bumper. _That and to look before I leap!_

Being tailgated was not a position Jazz wanted to be in, but as they sped along into another dimly illuminated tunnel there wasn’t enough space for him to pull away. There was no room for him to move aside even if he’d been inclined to let the blue car pass, and he was already going as fast as he could. There was no way to coax any more speed out of his frame, and he could still feel the other mech bouncing off his bumper.

He looked back, assessing his opponent. _We’re probably about the same build and top speed,_ he reasoned. _If I can get just a little bit of distance on him, I might be able to turn and get on top of him completely and slow him down so Tan rear-ends him._

If he could accomplish that, all he’d need to do would be to jump clear of the resulting collision. He hesitated, remembering the crash he’d passed earlier. Spinning out at top speed in a darkened tunnel littered with obstacles would be extremely damaging, possibly even fatal. Both of them would certainly be eliminated from the rest of the Challenge at the very least, and Jazz would be too if he couldn’t avoid getting dragged along with them. Did he really want to take that risk? Was he really contemplating deliberately causing them to wreck?

He wavered on the edge of the decision as the tan car crept closer and the blue mech on his bumper tried to nudge him askew into an abutment. He struggled to correct his steering, scanning the road ahead again looking for a clear stretch.

 _It’s not going to matter if I don’t do something soon_ , he thought. _If I can just hang on until we’re out of the tunnel where there’s a little more room!_ That would give him a better chance of a clean getaway and them a better chance of minimizing the damage from a collision. _Just another half mile!_

It felt like the longest half mile he’d ever driven as he fought to stay on course, but at last they came up out of the tunnel. Right before they left it, however, Jazz took advantage of its acoustics as he activated his top-notch sound system to blast the heaviest bass track he could come up with out of his speakers. The curved walls of the tunnel amplified the thudding beats so the air was shaking with it, and the blue mech picked up the vibrations directly off Jazz’s frame as well where their bumpers were still in contact. Completely caught off guard, he hit his brakes and dropped back in surprise just as Jazz had hoped.

 _Here goes nothing_. _Sorry mechs._ Once again he triggered his transformation sequence, this time letting his feet come up off the road and twisting in the air so that as the blue car pulled up beneath him he was able to reach down and grab his spoiler. Sure enough, the additional weight of Jazz’s frame settling on his roof caused him to slow rapidly. Almost too rapidly. Jazz barely had time to get his feet back under him before the second vehicle filled his rearview.

There was a bend just ahead, and Jazz knew they weren’t going to make it around the curve before they hit. He pulled himself up into a standing position before dropping sharply into a spin to build momentum for a higher jump, leaping diagonally off toward the open road in an aerial dance move just as tan struck blue. The impact sent them both spiraling away into the wall as Jazz landed neatly on his feet several meters away. He paused for just a moment before taking off again, shifting into vehicle mode once more to cover the last stretch of highway.

Part of him wanted to wait and make sure they were okay, but he knew he couldn’t linger. There would be medics coming to take care of that and he couldn’t afford the distraction of worrying about them. The final miles to the edge of the city were essentially a slalom through a low-income subdivision and he needed his full concentration to avoid all the places where the road was deteriorated and in desperate need of repair.

Driving here was always a treat. This was the section of the lower route that residents of Praxus or anyone who knew the highway system would have chosen the mid-level path to avoid, but for all that it wound back and forth and there was no margin for error it was over ten miles shorter a distance from downtown to the eastern border. It also saved on vertical distance, since Jazz knew that the Challenge would soon be heading below ground.

Careful not to blow out a tire on any unexpected potholes, he reached the edge of the city without further incident. A two-wheeler would have had it slightly easier, but Jazz still made excellent time. At the end of the road he transformed again to walk along the shoulder, following the course markers with his optics as they lead to one of the old abandoned refineries. Signs above the entry to the complex showed that the entire area had been designated part of the Challenge and Jazz knew there was a large mine shaft leading down into the caverns beneath the city housed in the central building the markers were pointing to.

There was an industrial shipping platform several stories above where he was currently standing where the mid-level highway connected. He peered up at it, cranking up his audial sensitivity and trying to pick up any signs of the others. Except for a few distant metallic echoes from the subdivision behind him and the ambient hum of his own engine, there was nothing.

 _Not. Good._ Jazz fingered the long scratch above his headlight as he looked around nervously. The empty buildings looming in front of him suddenly seemed a great deal more dangerous as he realized he had no idea where Lockdown was at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's amazing how much internet piles up in a single week XD I've got lots of catch up to do, but I wanted to go ahead and post this now not-quite-a-day later than usual and thank everyone for your comments! They were wonderful to come back to, so thank you so much <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The race - and the casualties - continue! Will Jazz make it to the next part of the Challenge? Can Prowl make it through _watching_ the rest?

He hadn’t quite crossed the open courtyard to the nearest building at a dead run, but he’d taken it pretty fast. Jazz felt horribly exposed out in the open and he breathed a sigh of relief once he was inside, pushing the door shut behind him. While he hadn’t picked up any signs of the others, he hadn’t felt comfortable heading straight to the central building outside. It would have left him with no cover at all if Lockdown appeared on the platform above, terribly exposed to anything he chose to throw down at him, be it debris or blaster fire. Better to enter one of the peripheral buildings and make his way from there.

It wasn’t likely anyone would be using the same door, but Jazz still wedged it shut before continuing. He didn’t know the layout of the complex, but fortunately there was a great deal of signage from back when it had been in operation for the workers. Following those, Jazz was able to find the series of covered walkways between the peripheral processing plant he’d entered to the main refinery with only a couple of missteps.

He was worried that he’d lost more time than he could afford with even those few backtracks though, and sure enough, as he slowly cracked the door open and peered out onto the factory floor he could see a shape moving in the distance silhouetted by an emergency light and the headlights from another mech glowing around the edge of a mixing vat not too far away.  He didn’t know who they belonged to, but one thing he was certain of was that neither would be Lockdown. He’d be moving invisibly, hunting without his lights to give him away while the others made targets of themselves with theirs.

Jazz had no intentions of making that mistake himself. Like the tunnels on the highway, the refinery was minimally lit by the barest of illumination, but he didn’t need his headlights to see by in root mode. Let Blaster crack all the jokes he wanted about him being blind, the highly advanced tech in his visor meant that he was anything but, even in near total darkness. _Better do somethin’ about the biolights though_ , he remembered, dimming them as much as possible as he began moving again.

There was no way to completely eliminate the way the dancer’s light footsteps still echoed slightly against the metal grating that made up the floor, but he tried to mute as much of it as he could. He hoped those echoes wouldn’t be enough for anyone to pinpoint his location, but he knew better than to count on it. The other mechs probably didn’t have senses that precise, but Lockdown was another story. _Shame he’s the one I need to avoid the most!_ Jazz paused at the bottom of a ladder that lead up to the next terrace where there was a catwalk to the barrier wall surrounding the mineshaft in the center of the floor. He waited for the echoes to die so he could listen carefully for any signs of him. _Wish I at least knew whether he was ahead or comin’ up behind me._

The thought of the bounty hunter looming up out of the shadows behind him with no warning was a frightening one and Jazz could feel his plating creeping again as his spark started pulsing faster. He didn’t normally have a fear of the dark – but then again, there wasn’t usually something in the dark out to get him. He turned his helm jerkily back and forth, praying his audials would alert him with enough time to react and do something if Lockdown got close.

 _You’re seizing up again,_ he warned himself. _Stop it. There’s too much you don’t know to be worryin’ about him until he shows himself, one way or another._ Prowl had told him once when he’d asked him how he dealt with unpredictable criminals that the best you could do was take reasonable precautions and then not waste processor power trying to come up with a strategy to handle every possibility. _Well my reasonable precautions are keepin’ my lights off and stayin’ quiet. Only other thing is to keep moving._

He gripped the first rung of the ladder and began climbing swiftly, setting his focus on the obstacle in front of him. _Lockdown might be the biggest roadblock out there, but I still have to get to the end of the course and it wouldn’t do to slip now!_ The ladder was very tall and falling from it would hurt, not to mention incredibly noisy.  He hoped the clanging reaching his audials from one of the other’s much heavier treads was enough to mask the soft tinking sound of his hands on the ladder as he made his ascent.

When he reached the top Jazz pulled himself into the shelter of the observation station at the beginning of the catwalk to rest for a moment before attempting to cross it. There was no cover on the other side until he got down into the mine shaft itself, and he wanted to look around to see where the two mechs he’d spotted from the floor had gotten to. The one making all the clanking was still on the ground, obviously trying to find an entrance at that level. The other was no longer visible; either he’d found a way in or he was too far around the other side at the moment for his lights to reach.

 _Or Lockdown got him._ Jazz stomped on that thought as soon as it surfaced. There was no reason to assume something so sinister just because he couldn’t see him anymore. Even if it was the truth, there was nothing that he could do about it. _If it is true though, that means he’s getting close and I gotta move,_ Jazz thought, crouching in the doorway for a moment before taking off across the catwalk. There was a rhythm to the banging the mech below was engaged in, trying to hammer open an access hatch, and Jazz timed his steps to match until he reached the end of the catwalk and drew up to the edge of the wall.

While he had no idea in exact terms how deep the mine shaft ran, Jazz was well aware that it was far enough that he wouldn’t survive a straight fall to the bottom in any condition to walk away from the landing. Just hopping over the edge was also a poor idea since it wasn’t likely a straight fall anyway. He was willing to bet were beams and cables invisibly crisscrossing along the descent to block the way and that he’d encounter one of them long before he made it a fraction of the way down if he just jumped.

Kneeling quickly, he peered into the blackness. With no lights at all past the rim, absolutely nothing was visible beyond a couple of frame lengths down. The only vague shapes he could make out confirmed his guess that the way was partially blocked, but without a more precise idea where the obstacles were it was going to be a very long and dangerous game of trial and error to navigate his way down in the dark. It was frustrating knowing that if he just turned on his lights it would have been completely doable, but he didn’t dare.

 _Well I can’t turn my lights on and that’s not changin’, so just get to it. It’s no use sittin’ up here wishin’._ One of the shapes Jazz could see just before everything sank into shadow looked like it was actually a narrow platform that butted up against the wall, so before he could talk himself out of it he swung over the edge. He hung there for just a moment before letting go, sliding down until his feet struck metal and he steadied himself against the wall as he glanced around.

His visor was able to compile the briefest of sketches of his surroundings from the echoes of his landing bouncing back to his audials, but it wasn’t enough to take him any farther than the end of the platform he was on. When he reached it, however, he discovered that there was a pulley assembly attached to it with a cable thick and strong enough for him to climb down.

 _Maybe this’ll be doable without lights after all,_ he thought as he reached the end of the cable. His feet had struck the hook at the end of the pulley before he found another platform, but holding on with one hand and reaching out with the other brought him in contact with a solid girder that he was able to pull himself up onto. He felt his way along it with his feet in short, tentative steps until he reached another ladder, and he nodded to himself as he hopped over to it. _Just keep goin’ from one thing to the next, as long as it’s in a downward kind of direction._

As long as he didn’t encounter any dead ends, he could follow the path by feel if he was careful, no lights needed. Preserving the darkness would protect him and make it easy to spot anyone coming down behind him using their lights, and Jazz felt better about his chances even though he knew that it was taking a long time to do it this way. Hopefully he could make it up later. The lack of lighting wasn’t likely to persist throughout the rest of the Challenge; once they’d been forced to deal with it once, a new twist would appear to challenge them in new ways.

Unfortunately he did eventually reach a place where the next step wasn’t immediately apparent. He was standing on a platform he’d dropped a few feet to from another beam, but he checked around all the edges without finding a way down off of it. Feeling along the walls to either side didn’t turn up anything either, and Jazz swore internally, fighting down the urge to pace on it. _Probably is a ladder off to the side somewhere, if I were a bigger mech with a longer reach!_

He moved to the outer edge and knelt, straining to see anything to no avail. _Gonna have to risk jumping now,_ he thought. _Either that or a really quick look with the lights._

He slid forward, trying to angle himself better to aim the light down and hopefully minimize it lighting him up as much. His shifting knocked a piece of debris loose from his frame and it fell over the side, dropping down several meters before hitting something solid. Jazz hesitated, listening carefully to see if he could determine if that had been the next platform.

 _If it is, that’s not so far I can’t make the jump, as long as the way down is clear._ He dug in his seams for another small piece of rubble, moving his hand out to the side before dropping it. It struck metal the same distance down, as did the third he dropped off to the other side. _Perfect!_

The sudden whine of a blaster powering up had him launching himself into a dive head-first over the edge as opposed to the more controlled foot-first drop he’d intended. The energy blast crackled above him, passing through the space he’d just been standing to burst against the wall. The explosion of plasma lit the area all around him and Jazz was suddenly able to see the web of cables surrounding him as he fell through them in full detail. He took advantage of that to grab one of them to swing himself through the tangle sideways onto a different walkway than the one he’d been heading for, rolling into a protective crouch as he looked up to try to catch a glimpse of the shooter.

 _Did Lockdown catch up with me?_ He could hear steps approaching the edge of the platform above and he waited, frozen. He cut all light from his visor and activated his alternate color scheme, hoping the gray would blend in better or at least throw him off if he was looking for black and white. _As long as he isn’t scanning with blacklights, that is!_

A moment later glowing red optics appeared in the darkness, their light illuminating the face around them just enough to see the edges of the mech’s tattoos. _Scrap! It is him!_ The scent of energon wafted his way as a few drops splashed down, and Jazz thought again of the mech on the factory floor who had vanished. He didn’t even dare to cycle his vents as Lockdown looked around slowly before stepping back into the shadows, the light of his optics vanishing and plunging the mine shaft back into complete darkness.

Jazz immediately started reviewing the visual he’d gotten from the light of the blaster fire. He had to get away, fast! There hadn’t been any other ladders nearby, but he thought he’d seen – yes! There was a pipe, slender but sturdy descending a few feet away from the wall that he could reach from the ledge he was on. Not wasting another second, he went for it, leaping out to grab hold of it to slide quickly down away from the hunter above.

He’d expected the pipe to turn back into the wall or take a horizontal turn that he couldn’t follow, but was pleasantly surprised to discover it did not. He stopped briefly to tap the pipe, trying to gauge how much further it went. The vibrations indicated it went down a long way, maybe even the rest of the way to the bottom of the shaft. Jazz began to hope again at the thought, feeling positive enough to pull off a few inverts and spins as he paused between slides to recheck the pipe. The familiar moves were comforting after that scare, and the magnetic mods in his hands that he was using as literal hand brakes had originally been installed as dancing mods, after all.

As a faint light appeared below and began to grow in strength, Jazz grinned in relief and released the magnets, gliding the rest of the way down to stand again on solid ground. The light was coming from a doorway just ahead, and Jazz made for it, this time sprinting as fast as he could go. Lockdown was behind him now, and while he knew he’d need to be on the lookout for more blaster fire, if he could just stay ahead of him maybe he had a chance after all.

***

Prowl's spark almost stopped as the footage in the stadium showed Lockdown lining up for the shot on Jazz. The small black and white mech had no idea he’d been spotted and Prowl could feel his fingers digging into his palms as a shout that would do absolutely no good at all built in his vocalizer. He didn’t realize how tensely he’d been holding himself until Jazz dove forward just in time to evade it and he felt everything let go at once, doorwings aching and trembling with reaction and his knees almost giving out in relief.

“Okay, I’m not going to believe you’re fine now, not after that. You’re about to collapse, aren’t you? Sir – Prowl, please tell me what’s wrong!” Bluestreak’s voice was insistent and Prowl tried but just couldn’t find the strength to reconstruct the professional façade as he turned to face his worried colleague.

“I am not feeling well,” he admitted softly. “It is a combination of things, none of which can be helped. Please do not trouble yourself.”

“Is this about what happened last night? Because you didn’t tell me what happened and I tried looking through the incident reports but I didn’t see your name in any of them.” Grabbing his hand, Bluestreak lead Prowl over to a vacant seat and pushed him to sit down. He frowned, fingers lingering for a moment before he stepped back. “I’ve never felt your EM field like this before, and your whole frame is shaking. I’m calling a medic.”

“No! Please, that isn’t necessary,” Prowl protested. “I don’t need you to call anyone, I just need to rest for a moment.”

The young mech hesitated. As he stared at Prowl, however, his expression hardened. “I’m sorry sir, but if you won’t call someone then I will. You don’t take care of yourself, working too hard all the time and not looking out for your personal needs! I’ve seen you sacrificing recharge and probably underfuelling all week working on preparations for the Festival! And I saw how much more stressed you were after _he_ entered the Challenge.” Prowl’s optics flared slightly, but Bluestreak didn’t dwell on it. “You’re overclocking your systems and something’s going to give out on you if you don’t do something! So either you call a medic, or you let me call one for you.”

“I saw a medic last night,” Prowl finally told Bluestreak after a long pause. The gray mech’s doorwings twitched in surprise. “There was an accident that was not reported and I was taken to a nearby clinic. I should probably see the mech I saw there for treatment for any follow up, though he is probably not at work on a day like today.”

“I’ll try him anyway. Which clinic and what was his name?”

Prowl took one last look at the determination on Bluestreak’s face before giving in and letting his frame slump down in the seat, sending him a quick databurst with the contact information First Aid had given him the night before. He was embarrassed that he’d lost control of his field enough to be noticed, but even as he tried to bring it back in line he felt the strain on his systems and stopped.  There was no point now. His optics returned to the large screens above the stands as Bluestreak made the call and connected, visibly chattering away on an internal comm. by his frame language. It appeared First Aid was on shift after all.

Searching through the monitors he finally spotted Jazz again after checking that his name was still lit up on the leaderboard. He’d done a brief doubletake when he saw that he was in second place with Lockdown just behind him in third, then a longer one when he saw that somehow the crazy mech had gotten himself onto a pipe running the length of the mine shaft and was posing on it like it was a dancer’s pole. This time the sound building in his vocalizer was a helpless laugh and he allowed a weakened version of it to escape. If the sound was slightly hysterical, well, that couldn’t be helped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just made it, it's still Sunday here for another few minutes! I had planned on updating this morning and returning to my Sunday schedule, but unfortunately getting sick waits for no fic! Having slept through my usual time and not finishing as much of this as I'd originally planned, I hope you still enjoy the update :P Don't worry, what didn't make it into this chapter will probably now get its own chapter next week! Thanks for reading everybody!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gauntlet takes another toll (or two) as mechs reach their breaking point and things wind up for the final showdown.

Rushing through the doorway at the bottom of the mine shaft, Jazz was forced to pause as he came into a large open gallery. There must have been hundreds of lights, each refracting and lancing rainbows off the enormous outcroppings of crystal that filled the room, some growths spanning the full height of the cavern. The miner’s lamps strung along the walls and hanging from the ceiling were more than sufficient to light even a pure ore mine. Here, with all the crystal to augment them and ring each with its own wavering halo, the temporarily silver mech chuckled at the irony of light that was more blinding than the darkness he’d just left behind.

He polarized his visor, the blue crystal going black in appearance to cut down on the glare as he reluctantly dialed down his audials as well. Going from sensory deprivation to sensory overload seemed to be the order of the day as his frame tingled from the auditory and electromagnetic feedback generated by the crystal’s reaction to his presence. Disabling his hearing entirely would have been more comfortable, but Jazz could not bring himself to do it in case it was the only warning he got.

 _Like last time,_ he shuddered, remembering the sound of the blaster. _I don’t want my energon to be the next dripping off that hook._ Not knowing how long he had before Lockdown reached the bottom of the mine shaft, Jazz took off again through the maze of crystal, still trying to move quietly and keep his distance from the walls to minimize the buzzing in his plating.

He made his way to the other end of the gallery and through a short bare tunnel to a fork that led into a much more densely populated room full of green crystal spires and another, steeper tunnel lined with red and pink crystal nodules. _Scrap, it really is a maze,_ Jazz realized. _How’m I supposed to stay ahead if I don’t know which way to go?_ It wouldn’t have been as bad if the bounty hunter were slowed down figuring out the right path as well, but Jazz couldn’t dismiss the sneaking suspicion that Lockdown wouldn’t be relying on guesses.

 _Bet he’s got more than just the first part of the track memorized, the cheating git._ This cave system would have been cultivated specifically for the Challenge over the many vorn since the Festival was last held in Praxus, those responsible sworn to secrecy so none of the participants would have any foreknowledge of it, but Jazz knew better than to believe their security had been foolproof. If anyone could find a way to obtain a map in advance, it would be Lockdown. _Especially since he’s got a buddy involved in said security,_ Jazz thought bitterly. _Creeps, the both of them!_

As he tried to decide on a direction his dampened audials picked up the sound of someone entering the gallery he’d just left from the crystal echoes and he jumped, swearing. Foregoing the larger space of the second room he headed up the tunnel, using the small shapes along the walls as handholds to pull himself higher where the grade was particularly treacherous. _I really hope there’s more than one way through this place and that this doesn’t lead to a dead end!_ He swallowed hard. _My dead end._

***

As the racers all made it past the mine shaft, one of the screens in the stadium switched to an overhead view of the entire crystal maze, the positions of each of the remaining mechs marked in addition to the numerous helpful popups indicating the types of crystals and the dangers they posed for the different chambers. Prowl could see there were several ways through the maze, but also several places where the path doubled back on itself and no small number of dead ends. Unsurprisingly, the most dangerous crystal formations were concentrated closest to the end of the maze, and there was no way to bypass the worst of the lot.

He glared up at Bluestreak as the mech stepped in front of him, blocking his view. “Please move,” he said calmly. “I want to see what is happening.”

“And I wanted to tell you I spoke with First Aid. He wants me to bring you down to Medical,” the young mech answered. “I’ve already notified the Captain, so let’s go.”

“You did what?” Prowl’s voice rose slightly as he fought down a brief surge of panic. “What did he say?”

“He said he was going to come escort you personally, but he’s got enough things he needs to be doing already and he really shouldn’t be away from the Prime unless it’s an absolute emergency so I told him I’d handle it and assured him I’d make sure you were all right myself,” Bluestreak told him.

Prowl stared at him, amazed at his audacity. “I shouldn’t be away either,” he started to say, Bluestreak started talking again over top of him.

“He sounded like he didn’t want to let you go though, and frankly that has me even more concerned. I don’t like the way he was talking, it was almost like he was more worried about himself than you for some reason.” Bluestreak looked at Prowl, an oddly knowing glint in his optics. “I’m starting to sense a cover up, and if you were trying to keep me out of it I think we’re past that point now. I know enough, or at least he’ll assume I do based my call, that if it is a cover up he’s going to have to take steps later so you might as well tell me all of it. Why don’t we hurry up and get you to medical before he finds a way to come over and stop us and you can fill me in?”

Once again, Prowl’s stern expression seemed to be completely ineffective, which was just as well since his frown broke against his shock as his colleague actually grabbed his arm and pulled him up to follow him. “Bluestreak, please, I need to see what’s happening.”

“They have portable screens in Medical; how else do you think they know when to send out a team to retrieve someone? Although, after watching what Lockdown did to those mechs in the refinery, they probably just sent a transport to recover the frames.” Bluestreak looked and sounded angry as he headed toward the steps, the hand gripping Prowl’s arm pulling the unresisting mech along behind him. “There was no need to go that far! He could have disabled them without killing them!”

“Yes. He could have.” _But he chose not to._ Prowl snuck one last look at the monitors as he allowed Bluestreak to guide him through the crowd, his spark constricting as he saw Lockdown’s icon only a chamber away from Jazz’s and swiftly closing the gap.

***

The cave system was immense. Jazz had been forced to backtrack and circle around repeatedly, each time ratcheting up his systems to a higher level of tension. The crystals transmitted sound and EM activity with enough warning that someone was getting close for him to escape as long as he had somewhere to go. So far he’d managed not to get cornered, but every time he got away from the footsteps at his back the faster they seemed to find him again and he worried he wasn’t making enough progress toward the end of the maze.

He’d figured out by now that he needed to head west – the caves ran under the city similar to the way the highway had wound through it, ending in a final climb back up to the surface to complete the circuit at the stadium, no doubt. Jazz had started writing his own map as he went, creating a small display in the corner of his HUD as an overlay with a map of the city to track his position relative to his destination, but unfortunately the tunnels and chambers weren’t as linear as the roads. It was slower going as well, the miles taking much longer to traverse on foot than on wheels, especially with all the detours he was forced to take to avoid running into anyone.

It was entirely possible that the footsteps he was hearing weren’t Lockdown’s anymore and that one of the others was nearby instead, but he couldn’t afford to take the chance. He tried to take a mental tally to see where he stood figuratively as he focused on his literal footing along a fragile ledge near the roof of a new gallery. He’d come in through a high opening and there was no way down besides falling, but there were several exits at multiple levels on the other side of the chamber just as there were multiple entrances, including one he could reach from where he was as long as the narrow shelf didn’t crumble beneath him.

 _There were sixteen of us to start; three crashed in the stadium, then there were the two who crashed on the highway,_ he counted, still feeling somewhat guilty for being the cause of that second accident. _Lockdown got at least one of the mechs in the refinery, maybe both. Wish I knew how many he got on the highway before that, I have no idea how many are left besides the two of us._

The surface beneath his feet began to hum and Jazz stopped moving, flattening himself back against the wall.  Looking down he saw a boxy mech with a red and yellow paintjob almost reminiscent of Blaster’s at one of the ground level entrances making his way uncertainly across the floor. Jazz wondered if he worked as a surveyor based on the array of sensors and antennae on the mech’s helm and shoulders and felt a pang of sympathy for him as he watched him stumble against a column of the prevalent green crystal and flinch from the resulting feedback. He obviously hadn’t turned down his settings enough earlier and was now struggling against the overwhelming input from his own advanced systems.

 _Bet they helped him in the mine shaft, but they aren’t doing him any favors here._ The smart thing for him to have done would have been to stop and run a soft reset before adjusting his sensors to keep going, but he was either too disoriented or too stubborn to do so. Jazz slowly started inching his way along the ledge again as he continued to watch him, not wanting to attract his attention but not comfortable where he was with the mech staggering around enough to possibly compromise the unstable outcropping by accident.

He had just reached the opening to what turned out to be a tunnel that appeared to veer off in the right direction when it happened. His foot had only just left the ledge when a sudden piercing cry fractured it, lines spiderwebbing across the surface before several sections of it shattered from the stress. Jazz ducked back quickly and angled a mirror to see what was happening in the broken-up reflection in what crystal remained on the wall.

The red and yellow mech was down on the ground, a glowing pool of energon quickly spreading beneath him. A second later Jazz heard the echo of footsteps and watched as Lockdown appeared next to the mech to retrieve the energon blade protruding from his neck, wrenching it free carelessly and tearing the lines open more fully as his victim gave one weak gasp that shuddered through the cave before his vocalizer flooded and gave out.

Fighting the rising urge to purge his tanks Jazz tore himself away and was several lengths down the tunnel when a sudden thought drew him up short. He was standing in a narrow passage without any crystal in it at all, while Lockdown was surrounded by it in the room behind him. He had no way to reach or fit down this particular path if Jazz revealed himself, assuming he didn’t know where he was already. Those circumstances gave Jazz a weapon he could use from a distance if he chose, even though he wasn’t carrying any knives of his own.

It almost made him feel sicker to contemplate it, but the surveyor was probably already graying and Jazz could not allow himself to join him. _Do what you have to,_ he told himself. Gritting his denta he turned to face the way he’d come and took several steps back toward the opening of the tunnel, fixing the resonant frequency of the crystal in his processor.

Pausing still partway down the passage, Jazz cut his audial input entirely and cued up his vocalizer. Bracing himself against the haptic feedback he would still be subject to, he opened his mouth and poured everything he had into the release of a single pure, aching note. The powerful sound cascaded down onto the crystal below as he sang, making the columns ring and the air vibrate. He let it build, holding on as long as he could before breaking off sharply and running back down the tunnel away from the silent cacophony he could nonetheless feel with his entire frame. His footsteps were shaky, but with any luck, Lockdown’s would be worse.

 _It’s probably too much to hope that I took him out with that,_ Jazz thought as he wound his way along the path, holding off on bringing his audials back online while the air was still dancing with echoes. _But I bet it slowed him down, and I certainly hope it hurt! Bet Prowler enjoyed seeing that!_

***

In the stands, however, Prowl hadn’t been able to do more than glance occasionally at the leaderboard to make sure Jazz’s name had not been grayed out. It was taking a long time for the two Praxian Enforcers to make their way to the edge of the stadium where Medical had been set up, and Prowl was beginning to feel like he was on an obstacle course of his own. Several times they had been forced to stop and rebuff vendors trying to sell them Festival souvenirs or to dodge enthusiastic ‘discussions’ over the outcome of the Challenge. One was so bad that he hadn’t allowed Bluestreak to detour around it, delaying their progress to break up a group of femmes who had moved beyond words and had started talking with fists and claws until they could leave them with another officer.

Bluestreak made several remarks about younglings barely into their adult frames behaving like they weren’t ready for their upgrades as they started moving again, punctuating his statements with emphatic hand gestures. Prowl didn’t comment on the young officer not being as far in age from them as he was making himself out to be. One of the femmes had shouted something that had him much more concerned than what Bluestreak was saying and had knocked all thought of watching the race temporarily from his processor.

“ _Of course_ he’s not going to Choose _you_! _Everyone_ knows his one true sparkmate is Blaster!” She’d been so passionate that her optics had been shimmering with light ribbons as they’d pulled her away from her rival. Neither of them had mentioned Jazz by name, but it wasn’t much of a leap to guess who they had been talking about with all the signs bearing his face littering the seats nearby, abandoned when things had escalated. It made Prowl realize something he hadn’t even considered in his worry that Jazz would be killed in the Challenge – he didn’t know what would happen if he actually won.

 _Maybe he never thought that far ahead,_ he considered, the thought not completely out of the question given how often the mech acted on impulse. _He was trying to get me to file an exemption so Lockdown couldn’t Choose me; maybe he just thought he could keep Lockdown from winning so someone else could in order to stop him._

He shook his helm, dismissing the idea as ridiculous. Jazz might have been upset about the bounty hunter’s plans, but he’d been trying to get _Prowl_ to do something about it. He wouldn’t have taken on Lockdown himself just to protect him; not even Jazz would be that crazy after what Lockdown had said to him the one time they’d spoken.

It wouldn’t be unlike him to take advantage of an opportunity to accomplish more than one goal at once though, and winning the Challenge would give him the chance to confess a hidden love with the fringe benefit of foiling Lockdown to help a friend. Prowl’s processor immediately began spitting out several helpful statistics as he ran the numbers to try to figure out who he might be harboring hidden feelings for.

 _It probably_ is _Blaster,_ Prowl concluded miserably. _They work well together and he enjoys his company. They’re always very friendly whenever we are all together, brushing against each other and laughing at each other’s jokes._ He had slowed without realizing it and his steps halted entirely as he remembered who had escorted Jazz to the stadium earlier in the morning and the way Blaster’s hand had lingered on his shoulder at the gate. Prowl suddenly felt torn; he didn’t want Jazz to die, of course he didn’t! _But if he’s going to call Blaster’s name on the podium, I don’t know that I want him to win, either._

“Where did you – there you are!” Bluestreak’s voice sounded far away. Prowl told himself it was because of the sound of the crowd around them as he tried to regain control of his thoughts. “I was worried you had collapsed for real this time, then I saw you standing there and figured the crowd got in your way, but the look on your face just now…” his chatter trailed off, EM field reaching out inquiringly before withdrawing quickly as Prowl almost violently pulled his own back down against his plating. When had he lost control of it again? “Let’s hurry. I’m going to turn on my lights and get everyone to back off.”

The gray mech was as good as his word. Grabbing Prowl’s wrist before he could protest, Bluestreak set off at a brisk pace, lights all coming on to warn everyone to make way. He didn’t use his siren to Prowl’s great relief; this was going to look bad enough to any of the news mechs who spotted them, especially when he saw First Aid coming out to meet them rather than waiting for them to come inside.

“Prowl! I was starting to wonder if something had happened, you were taking so long to get here!” The medic sounded a little worried but not panicked, his visor bright over his mask but his field calm as he stepped forward to usher them both into the large tent Medical was occupying. “Let’s get you sitting down and some energon, you look exhausted. Were you not able to rest last night after you left? You should have called sooner.” He gestured to Bluestreak to take a seat as he helped Prowl up onto one of the berths along the wall, his deceptively strong reinforced frame easily supporting the Praxian’s weight. He stepped back, drawing the partition curtain mostly closed before stepping away, presumably to get the cube he’d mentioned.

“You really should have,” Bluestreak echoed quietly. “Look, I still say you aren’t protecting me or yourself by not talking about whatever is going on, but if you still don’t want to I’ll leave. On one condition!” He raised a hand, pointer finger held up illustratively in addition to the admonishing tilt of his doorwings. “If you won’t tell me, you at least have to tell First Aid.”

“Tell First Aid what?” the mech in question asked, returning sooner than Prowl had expected. He handed him a cube of what looked like a recovery blend, the fuel thicker than usual with additives designed to support and bolster self-repair. Prowl took it absently as it was pressed into his hand but did not drink it, looking between the two young, earnest mechs in front of him. The naked concern on their faces was impossible to ignore and he found he could not meet either’s gaze for long. His optics darted quickly around the small enclosure before dropping to the cube as a safe focal point.

“Is it something you would prefer to discuss confidentially?” First Aid asked gently. “Your colleague doesn’t need to stay.”

“He can stay,” Prowl told him, his doorwings twitching to acknowledge Bluestreak despite his optics remaining fixed on the shimmering energon. “I don’t mind him hearing. But, please.” He tried and failed to fully suppress the desperate flare of his EM field as he choked over the words. “I have to see what’s happening in the race.”

“Oh! Of course, I should have realized you’d be distressed over that, you’re worried about your intended.”

Prowl’s helm snapped up before First Aid had taken a single step to retrieve one of the portable monitors, the dam breaking at last. “He’s not my intended,” he said, his whole frame tensing with a sickening blend of anger, fear and shame. “Lockdown has been stalking me and he’s out there on the course right now trying to kill my best friend.”

***

Jazz hadn’t heard any signs of Lockdown, or anyone else for that matter, once he’d felt it was safe to listen again after his trick earlier and had been in better spirits after getting in a shot of his own against the bounty hunter. He’d steadfastly shoved all thoughts of the other mech’s fate away to deal with later; he couldn’t let himself fall apart with reaction now. _The show must go on,_ he thought detachedly, staring forward blankly for a moment before beginning to climb over the uneven surface of the rough, angular crystal protrusions covering the floor of the latest cavern. He couldn’t let himself dwell on the emotional endurance test this race had become in addition to his growing physical exhaustion. If he did, he was afraid the strain of it all would be too much and he wouldn’t be able to go on. Checking his internal map again, he reminded himself was finally in the vicinity of the stadium and almost out of this maze. _It can’t be much further now._

He was afraid to stop for long but had to pause briefly to let his systems cool a little before continuing on to the next room. Stifling his fans and vents to reduce sound for so long had had the unfortunate side effect of faster heat buildup, and Jazz had been pushing himself to the limits of what he could tolerate. He knew even without wasting the time and energy on a diagnostic scan that he’d lost some of the wiring in his right leg after a grueling near-vertical descent where he’d had to keep catching himself from sliding down the incline. Better a few stripped circuits than the racket that would have caused, particularly with how painful the landing on the sharp black growths would have been.

Compared to the last chamber where there was only a single type of crystal on the floor, this one was almost entirely filled with multiple varying species. The frosty white spurs of one jutted out along the edges of the smooth semi-translucent floor to ceiling walls formed by another, their tips delicate but wickedly sharp and fully capable of nicking plating or severing lines if they got underneath a mech’s armor. The low-lying rounded blue-violet colonies dotting the floor were harmless, though also fragile, susceptible to being crushed by heavier frames if they were stepped on. Jazz, however, was light enough to be able to hop up onto one without damaging it to examine what looked like impurities running through the large faces that dominated the room.

A familiar blue twinkled beneath the surface of the wall – not an impurity after all, but a branching vein of the same superconductive crystal his visor utilized. He marveled at the beauty of it in its natural state, the cubic forms somewhat distorted by the surrounding piezoelectric host. _Beautiful but incredibly dangerous,_ Jazz thought as he jumped down and began trying to find a way through the room that wouldn’t result in scores from the proliferate white spikes. _Any charge builds up in here and I won’t have to worry about Lockdown finding me, I’ll be too busy dodgin’ lightning from the walls._

It was impossible to see how big the room was through all the crystal as he made his way along, the huge structures butting up against each other and forming tunnels within the room itself that Jazz didn’t dare climb up into, and not just because as he advanced he finally heard the sounds of another mech ahead of him from up above. The crystal formed a veritable funhouse of facets, several of which held glimmers of the other’s blue armor, confirming it wasn’t Lockdown. _No way I’m encasing myself in the stuff where it’s that easy to get fried,_ he thought. _That mech is an idiot for doing it._

He found himself regretting that somewhat prophetic thought not a moment later as he felt a shift in the air and static beginning to gather. Jazz dove down next to one of the blue-violet clusters of inert crystal and huddled against it, curling up as tight as his considerably flexible frame would allow and flattening his plating to prevent electricity arcing to him as the air above him all but caught fire.

With his helm tucked down Jazz couldn’t see the lightning above him, but the heat of it was scorching. He could feel his paint blistering, the regularly invisible secondary highlights burning hotter than the rest and searing lines of agony down his back and arms. He cried out in pain, the sound completely lost beneath the thunderous CRACK that accompanied the electricity exploding through the chamber.

Sparks and shards of the sharp white crystal rained down on him as a section of the smooth translucent covered with it burst overheard, the tiny slivers cutting into his sensitized plating and lodging agonizingly in the bubbled paint. If he’d had the processor power to spare Jazz might have been grateful for that since it meant they would stick instead of sliding into seams to lacerate his internals when he uncurled, but all he could think in the moment was how much it hurt. Shaking, he rocked on the ground, begging for it to end.

He almost didn’t notice when it finally did. It wasn’t until the cacophony died down and he realized the only sound he was hearing was his own soft keening that he knew it was over. _Get up, get up, get up!_ he told himself, desperately trying to find a way to stand and start moving again. None of his injuries were life threatening, but they hurt as though they should be, and Jazz knew if he couldn’t get the pain under control he was done for. That charge could have only come from one source, and it wasn’t the smoking wreck of a frame burning in the blackened crystal above.

Jazz found himself focusing on the other mech’s charred energon, the smell both horrifying and bizarrely grounding. He forced himself to get to his feet, swaying as the movement sent new waves of pain radiating across his sensor net. Stroking his thumbs along the sides of his fingers as a distraction, Jazz vented carefully to be sure he wouldn’t draw in any crystal shards as he waited for his survival protocols to kick in. They wouldn’t eliminate the pain and they weren’t as effective as actual pain patch from a medic would be, but they would dull it enough that the damage warnings would stop clogging his processing trees.

A notice flashed briefly on his HUD indicating the moment they activated, although the concurrent relief was significant enough Jazz hardly needed the alert to tell him when it happened. He turned his helm to look back through the still standing crystal, the facets now filled with a kaleidoscope of black and green with splashes of red. Jazz could see broken up images of himself in the walls as well, mostly blacks and grays and very small patches where he was miraculously still white. Most of the silver had burned away and what little remained of the secondary paint had deactivated. His visor still appeared black from the polarization, though with several of the lights now blown out, Jazz reverted to his standard configuration to see better. The vibrant blue popped in his stark reflection before he turned to keep going, the first steps a little slow but quickly picking up in pace.

They quickly became a run as he heard a voice following him, laughing through the smoke with a deadly rasp. “Jazz! You can’t escape now!” it called out, all pretense at civility gone. “There’s no one left to hide behind! It’s just you, and me!”

“Didn’t have to do that,” Jazz shot back. “You didn’t have to hurt anyone else!” He spotted a shadow through the crystal and made toward it, hoping it was a way out. Lockdown growled, an audible burr indicating that he’d taken damage along the way somewhere as well. _Hopefully from me,_ Jazz thought as he rounded one last column, nearly tripping with joy at the sight of the exit not only from the chamber, but from the crystal maze itself.

“Oh but I did,” Lockdown’s words chased him through the gate, the mech himself not far behind. “I wanted us to be able to take our time! I’ve got so many reasons to make this last, and before I let your spark extinguish I’m going to make you feel every. Last. ONE!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, perhaps unsurprisingly, the characters were not interested in me continuing to do horrible things to them and tried to make this chapter difficult to finish. I told them too bad, we're nearing the home stretch, get on with it XD Happy Sunday everybody!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, Adaptus will have His new Champion. Who will it be?

Prowl refused to speak any further after his unintentional outburst until First Aid brought in the portable monitor so he could continue watching the race. He dialed rapidly through the frequencies of the different networks until he found one that was following Jazz, his frame relaxing only the smallest fraction at the confirmation that he was still online. For a moment he almost forgot the others were even there, all his attention fixed on the display. The scale of the immense lavender hexagonal crystals surrounding him made Jazz look so very small...

The spell broke under the pressure of the two determined fields behind him though. Prowl turned just enough so that he could see each of them while still being able to keep an optic on the screen and drew himself up as tall as he could from his seated position on the berth. He waited to see which of them would start asking questions again first.

“How long has this been going on and why hasn't the captain done anything about it?”

“Why didn't you say something last night? I would never have let you leave with him if I'd known!” 

Both of them, apparently. The words overlapped as the two mechs started trying to talk at the same time, making it a little difficult to separate the sentences. When he did, Prowl felt an unexpected surge of relief. Neither was asking if he might have misinterpreted things or if he was just overreacting. They believed him. “He has been attempting to court me since we met, Bluestreak, and escalating with each proposal I rejected. As far as last night,” he answered First Aid, “I could hardly have said anything in his presence and he never left the room. Was there anything I could have said that he would not have talked his way around, having gotten your audial first before I was even online?”

First Aid looked stricken. Bluestreak looked appalled. “THAT'S why he entered the Challenge? To force you to accept instead of listening when you said no? I knew he was interested in you and I could tell you were uncomfortable with it and didn't like everyone talking about you like you were a couple all the time but I swear to Primus, I thought he was just flirting around the office! If I'd known how bad it really was I'd have said something a lot sooner!” His doorwings were quivering to the point of making his shoulder plating rattle faintly. “Why didn't you file an exemption when he signed up?!”

Prowl hesitated, waiting for First Aid to take his turn but the medic seemed to have decided to let Bluestreak finish asking his questions first as he struggled with what felt to Prowl like guilt. “I did not know of his intentions for the Festival until after the public announcement,” Prowl said simply. “I did not deem it wise to risk angering him by filing an exemption afterwards.”

“What- that- PROWL!” Bluestreak all but wailed. “If you thought you were in danger you should have reported him! You should have reported him when he started stalking you! Why didn't you ask for help?”

“To whom would I have reported it? Who could I have asked for help? You said so yourself, the whole precinct wants to see us paired off. It would be a beneficial arrangement for everyone.” Prowl struggled to keep his words devoid of emotion, afraid that letting any of his feelings slip through might start him babbling worse than Bluestreak. It was getting harder and harder to do but he could not afford it. Embarrassment aside, it would be too dangerous. He was on the verge of saying things he shouldn't as it was.

“Beneficial for everyone but you maybe, especially for...” The younger Praxian went completely still, his EM field taking on the same flat, dangerous calm that it did at the shooting range. “He's helping him. Barricade is helping him do this to you.” His expression was hard. “Whatever he's trying to cover up about yesterday has something to do with it, and I'm going to find out what.”

Apparently he already had said too much. Prowl panicked and reached out to catch Bluestreak’s arm as he started to walk away, the forgotten cube in his lap tumbling to the floor. “No! It's not worth the trouble you’ll get in if you involve yourself like that!”

“You think you're not worth the trouble, you mean,” Bluestreak said sadly. “Well I'm sorry sir, but I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of the situation. And I’m already involved, remember?”

“There’s no need for anyone else to get hurt,” Prowl started to argue but Bluestreak shook his helm, clearly not interested in hearing anything else on the matter.

“No one should be getting hurt, and that includes you,” he said. “As an Enforcer I have a responsibility to protect the citizens of Praxus, including my fellow officers, and to uphold the law. What he's doing - what they're doing - is illegal, not to mention disrespectful, disgusting and pathetic.” He spoke firmly but some of the stiffness left his field and frame as he gently removed Prowl's hand from his wrist. “Don't worry, I'm not going to rush in, guns blazing. I'm a sniper – I know how to be careful and take my time lining up a shot.”

“What Lockdown is doing isn’t illegal,” Prowl reminded him. “The rules of the Challenge permit all of it.” He looked over to the screen where Jazz was still making his way through the crystal caves. “He's the one with nothing protecting him.”

Bluestreak and First Aid exchanged a glance over Prowl’s head as he watched the tiny figure slip and almost fall down a near vertical incline into a sharp bed of black crystal spikes. With the noise of the crowd muffled by the walls of the medical tent, the soft distressed whine Prowl’s engine gave was audible to both of them.

“I'm going to go and see if I can find any actual evidence to back up my suspicions. I’ve got a pretty good idea where to start now that I know what I need to be looking for without staying to get any more details right now and I don't want to miss the chance to search with the precinct all but empty because of the Festival,” Bluestreak said, pausing at the edge of the curtain on his way out. “First Aid, can you keep anyone from coming and trying to take him before I get back?”

The medic shook himself out of his silence, field flaring protectively to cover Prowl with a feeling of security. “I'm not letting him go anywhere unless I know he'll be safe!” He promised.

Bluestreak nodded. “I'll check in with you soon Prowl,” he said. Then he was gone. 

First Aid turned to Prowl, his fierce protective aura tempering with a blend of comfort, concern and a thread of genuine apology. “I’m so sorry I didn’t pick up on any of this last night Prowl,” he said earnestly, sweeping the spilled fuel aside and bringing him another cube. “I misread your discomfort as fatigue and shock after the crash and unexpected shutdown and I didn't listen to you at all. It was a terrible mistake letting them rush you out and I'm sorry I didn't push harder to keep you there.”

“It was not your fault,” Prowl told him, this time bringing the energon up to take a sip. He barely tasted it. “You saw exactly what Lockdown wanted you to see.”

“You were who I should have been focusing on, not him,” First Aid said. “As a medic I’m supposed to be an advocate for my patients and figure out how to help them even when they can’t tell me what the problem is. But you were giving me signals and I missed them all.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Prowl said. On the monitor Jazz was entering what he recognized as the final chamber from the map in the stadium. The blue-veined translucent crystal interfered with the remote-camera feed, making for a poor image that wavered and blinked as Jazz’s movements stirred small currents across the crystal faces. “Just as there is nothing Bluestreak can do. They will not have been so careless as to leave anything to incriminate themselves. They are too careful and too powerful to confront.”

Not commenting on how his use of the plural implicated the captain, First Aid gestured for Prowl to finish his cube. “You never know, he might find something. One of my brothers works at the precinct and could help him look if I asked him. Would you let me do that? And even if you don’t feel comfortable with confrontation yet you can still take steps to take care of yourself. There are places you can go, shelters and support systems for mechs who need help with this sort of thing. Whatever your reasons for not going before, I’d like to take you to one now.”

“I am staying here,” Prowl said firmly.

“We should really relocate so no one knows where to start looking for you,” First Aid insisted. “Even if you only stay there temporarily, it’s dangerous for you to be here right now. I just need to call and arrange an escort and as soon as they get here we can–”

“No! I don’t want you involving anyone else and I’m not going anywhere until the Challenge is over!” Prowl tried once more to clamp down on his emotions as they made another bid for freedom. _This situation is getting entirely out of control, I cannot lose control of myself as well!_

First Aid raised his hands defensively and made calming motions with his hands. “I haven’t called anyone yet and I won't if you don’t want me to. But you do need energon, rest, and a safe place to take both. Here may not be the best place for any of those things.”

“All I need right now,” Prowl said slowly, _is for you to leave me alone until after the race. Please, just until the end of the race…_ “Is for him to be alive. Nothing else matters.”He flinched when he heard the words; that hadn’t been what he'd meant to say at all. He could feel his processor slowing, bogging down under the strain of trying to deal with his world coming apart.

“He sounds very important to you,” First Aid said. “You said Lockdown was trying to kill him – is that why? Is he targeting him to hurt you?” He joined Prowl in looking at the screen as they watched Jazz pause to look up at something in the crystal above him. “Who is he?”

“I told you before,” Prowl said. “He is my–”

The picture suddenly seized and Prowl cut off mid-sentence, doorwings jerking back in alarm as Jazz dove to the floor while the cave around him filled with lightning. Together he and First Aid watched in horror as the bright electrical light whited out the visual before destroying the camera entirely and the monitor went blank.

“JAZZ!”

Prowl felt his overworked processor blank with it, down from hundreds of thoughts and calculations to a single prayer in an instant. _No, oh no, Jazz, Primus please no, please don’t let him be dead!_ He wasn’t sure if he was still sitting or if he’d collapsed onto the berth; his sense of his own frame felt very vague. He did know that First Aid was still next to him, snapping out orders to someone else that had come in while he searched through frequencies on the monitor, but Prowl couldn't focus on the words. _Please no!_

First Aid stopped when he found one showing the corridor leading out of the maze, the relief in his field telling Prowl all he needed to know before he was able to make out what he was saying again: “He’s alive, Prowl. Your Jazz is alive.” First Aid set the screen where he could see it before getting up to continue talking with the other mech; another medic, Prowl assumed, though his patchy paint made it hard to be sure. He didn't bother to acknowledge him. His processor was still only up to handling a single thought as he took in every pixel. Jazz was hurt, badly if the limp in his gait and the pain on his face were any indication, but he was alive. For now. How much longer could he stay that way?

***

Running was painful, the stripped wires in his leg and the burns on his plating aching even through the survival pain blocks his systems were running. Jazz ground his denta and kept going, refusing to let either slow him down any more than he could help and not stopping until the path ended at the entrance to the last part of the course.

The final section of the Challenge was both exactly what he had expected and nothing he had seen coming. It was indeed a climb back to the surface from the subterranean crystal maze, but unlike the mine shaft’s series of fixed walkways, ladders and pipes, almost nothing in this area looked stationary. The floor fell away in front of him down into a vast chasm that was filled both above and below where he stood with the cables, pulleys and moving belts and platforms of a smelting plant.

 _Great. Not ominous at all,_ Jazz thought as he searched for a place to move to. _At least they lit the way up better’n the way down._ He didn’t pause to consider the best route; right now all that mattered was getting away from where he was and putting something between him and the entryway before Lockdown got close enough to start shooting again.

Some of the equipment was moving by itself, automated on timed paths. A massive arm was swinging in close enough to jump onto and Jazz leaped for it, hissing at the stretch to the damaged sections of his frame. His landing was far from graceful, but the scrabbling collapse he managed was good enough to keep him on the arm as it swung away again.

He had enough time as it made its way toward a series of grates to get back to his feet and reach up for them, fingers curling around the underside of the grille. He reactivated his magnets to help hold on and slid along the underside until he reached the edge. Swinging himself back and forth a few times to build momentum, he pulled himself up over the side. This time he landed on his feet, albeit shakily.

 _Not my best performance,_ he thought. _But pain is not a good dance partner. And death is a worse one._ The grate was suspended by cables at each corner by adjustable connectors and was currently at its lowest position. Jazz could see that they and several other pieces of the machinery around him could be manually operated, but one mech alone could not raise this particular platform. Certainly not one of the dancer’s smaller stature.

 _I’m never gonna make it far enough to be able to win before he starts to catch up,_ Jazz realized. Between his size and his injuries, making his way through this pit was going to be a lot of effort. He didn’t know how badly hurt Lockdown was, but the mech was bigger than him and better equipped with all his built-in mods, including more than one distance weapon. Unless he’d lost a limb, he’d be able to get around in here faster than Jazz and he wouldn’t have to get all that close to kill him.

 _Doesn’t have to, but he wants to._ A shiver ran down Jazz’s spinal strut and the shattered crystal fragments lodged in his plating twisted painfully. _Okay. Try movin’ while you’re thinkin’, mech. Maybe there’ll be something in here you can use._

Somewhat belatedly he realized he could turn his audials back up to their full sensitivity and he did, listening intently for the sound of Lockdown’s approach as he stepped out onto an angled conveyor, riding it slowly upwards as it ground along. The ringing of metal and the motorized whirring of moving parts surrounded him, but beneath those sounds all he could detect so far was a low buzzing static sound.

He glanced around, trying to work out the source as he made his way off the conveyor back toward the walls and continued to climb. It sounded like a stasis field, the same kind that was used in stasis cuffs only louder. He fought down a chuckle as he made the connection. _Prowler’s gonna want to slap me in cuffs for this and throw me in the lockup for crazy mechs. Maybe that’s where I belong, too._

Before he could pin its location down though, a new sound carried up from below. Lockdown was not making any effort to mask his footsteps or the growl of his engine and a moment later when Jazz looked down he could see him at the entrance. With a swift scan of the room Lockdown had his optics fixed on him, their burning red searing out of his white, soot-streaked face.

"End of the line, little mech!" he shouted. "Time to put an end to your meddling and interference. You should never have put yourself in my way!"

"And you should've left well enough alone!" Jazz turned away and kept moving, keeping track of Lockdown by sound. He couldn't let himself get dragged into a verbal sparring match, that would only speed up the inevitable physical one.

"Now that sounds like the kind of good advice you might have been smart to take yourself!" He heard him start to move and risked another glance back. The way that one knee wasn't bending fully was promising, as were the occasional sparks from his shoulder. He'd definitely been injured by Jazz's earlier sonic attack, whether from the feedback off the crystal or pieces of it falling on him or both. A good sized dent with several lacerations in and around it was visible on his back that almost had to be from a large piece landing on him as he had crouched down for cover. "If you'd left Prowl alone I never would have had to do this to you," he said.

 _That's it!_ "You're a complete glitch, you know that?" Jazz shot back, unable to remain silent though he kept moving. "Get it through your thick plating and frag off somewhere you're wanted! Prowl has zero interest in ever being with you!" He grabbed onto the cable suspending one of a series of small containers for transporting molten metal and slid down it to start running across them, praying with each alternating step that his bad leg wouldn't give out and send him plummeting. "Not my fault you wasted your time, mech!"

"No? Well too bad, I'm taking it out on you anyway. You aren't good enough for Prowl - that mech's got real talent in that processor of his, and with a little training he'll be the best partner I could ever want!"

"I knew it! You just want him to use him, to turn him into some kind of tool!" 

"That mech is no tool." Lockdown's tone was hungry. "He's a weapon!"

Jazz reached the end of the swinging containers and jumped onto the casing of an enormous industrial fan, whirling to glare at the bounty hunter. "Prowl is a mech! Not an upgrade for your arsenal!" Fury swept through him, all pain forgotten. "You and Barricade treating him like that has the poor mech convinced that's all he's good for! He's got his own feelings and interests and a right to both, but he acts like he's not allowed to want anything for himself because of you!"

Lockdown raised his arm and fired a grappling hook, the claw at the end finding purchase in the wall just above Jazz. He stood his ground as the mech flew toward him to land heavily, his feet warping the fan casing so the blades scraped against it as they turned. 

Lockdown stepped forward. "You've got no idea, do you?" He laughed. "Prowl has something he wants all right, but it doesn't fit into my plans."

"Yeah, wanting to be rid of you does kinda get in the way of that 'perfect partner' scheme you're workin' on." Jazz could hear the faint sounds of the metal beneath them protesting their combined weight. "Poor you."

"Poor _you_ ," Lockdown growled back. "I might've been able to let you live after teaching you a lesson if that were true. But you're right, I can't have Prowl wanting things for himself. And if you're still around, he'll keep wanting."

Jazz had already started to open his mouth to respond when Lockdown's words sank in fully and his jaw dropped the rest of the way. "Wanting...me?" The question came out quiet and hopeful and Jazz wanted to smack himself for it. _Way to go, you idiot! Just hand your spark to him on a platter why don't you?_

Lockdown grinned. "See? I can be nice!" He thrust his arm out to grab Jazz by the throat, lifting him up until they were face to face and squeezing. Jazz's HUD filled with warning popups as the pressure cut off fluid lines and threatened to crush his vocalizer. "You can die happy now." 

Unable to talk, Jazz watched Lockdown draw back his hook, the sparks from his shoulder glinting off the wicked metal. _The sparks from his shoulder!_

Jazz twisted in the bounty hunter's grip, reaching back along his own shoulder to scrape up a handful of the razor-sharp crystal shards stuck in his bubbled paint, their edges digging deeper into his plating and cutting into his hand as he pulled them free and jammed them into the sparking gap in the other mech's armor. By the shriek Lockdown let out, it must have hurt him a lot worse than it did Jazz. 

The groan of shearing metal joined the sound of Lockdown's pained howl and Jazz quickly brought his other hand up to the one on his neck. _Please don't scramble me too badly,_ he thought, reversing his magnets to send out a high-powered repulsive blast to loosen Lockdown's grip so that the swift kick he delivered to his chest sent him staggering backward without Jazz still in his clutches. That close to his helm the magnets damaged Jazz's sensors too though; he wobbled, balance compromised as his gyros fought to restabilize against the double onslaught of his own attack and the floor beneath them collapsing. 

Jazz threw himself clear of the fan blades, blindly falling several feet before he struck another one of the broad arm mechanisms. Its movement didn't help his dizziness at all as Jazz clung to it, hanging on as it brought him slowly across the chasm to another set of machinery. The buzzing he'd heard earlier was much louder now and he could make out beside him/below him a large stasis field generator on a moving track, slowly making passes back and forth/up and down nearby. 

_Scrap, I can't tell which way is up!_ Jazz swore. He needed to calibrate his systems, but he'd lost track of Lockdown. Did he have the time to run a reset? He remembered the surveyor from earlier; he'd thought at the time that he should have stopped and reset too. Now he thought he understood why he hadn't. _But not taking that time got him killed,_ Jazz reminded himself. _And I can't defend myself if I can't even stand._

He needed a place to hide and lay still just long enough to get through the program. Logically he knew he must be on top of the arm, having fallen down onto it, but he was too exposed there. He crawled to the edge and used his magnets once more to stick to the surface as he rolled over to the underside and froze, immediately starting a recalibration routine using his contact points with the metal as a reference for 'up'. Hopefully it would finish executing before Lockdown figured out where he'd gotten to. 

The arm had a long path across the entire expanse. He felt it reach the end of its range and stop before reversing, heading slowly over the stasis field below (he was pretty sure it was below now) and the empty space beyond back toward the shattered fan. 

With nothing to do but wait Jazz's thoughts returned to what Lockdown had said. Could it be true? Could Prowl really want him? _He didn't say he wanted you, he just said you made him want,_ Jazz tried to reason with himself. _That's still a good thing, even if that's all it is._ But oh, how he wanted it to be more. Maybe there was a chance his confession would be welcome after all. 

_Gotta win to find out,_ he thought, determination solidifying as his sense of direction began to come back. _And I can't let that monster get away with what he's planning. He'll kill Prowl's spark and turn him into the drone he's so afraid of becoming._ Not _gonna happen!_

He couldn't see through the solid metal above him, but the shudder that ran through the arm signaled Lockdown's arrival as it changed directions once more. He could feel him walking slowly and purposefully along it, the menace in his EM field overwhelming. 

"You'll pay for that, Jazz!" he said darkly. "You're going to wish you'd let yourself fall to your death!" 

The reset finished. With perfect clarity Jazz could see the machinery they were passing by and the stasis generator on its track up ahead. It moved back and forth over a series of large containers to render anything dropped into them inert as the bins moved on along another track to a material scanner before disappearing into an unpleasant sounding enclosed unit several levels down. A plan came together in Jazz's processor. _Come on, come on,_ he thought impatiently, running the pace of Lockdown's steps against the movement of the machinery. The timing was going to be so close... 

"I'm going to pin you to the wall and rip you apart," Lockdown was saying, and Jazz tried to tune him out and focus through the litany of threats. 

_Three._

"There are an awful lot of nonessential components you can live without that are incredibly painful when removed incorrectly. I'm looking forward to seeing how many you can lose before you lose consciousness as well!" 

_Two._

"They send medics in to recover the frames of the deceased. It's going to take them hours to pick up your pieces, and there won't be enough of you left to recognize even after they're done!" 

_One!_

Jazz reached up over the edge to grab onto Lockdown's ankle right as the mech leaned forward to catch hold of Jazz's helm, crushing one audial horn and bringing his hook up to the side of his face, resting the point of it just inside his mouth as Jazz screamed but did not let go. 

"Any last words?" he asked mockingly, tilting Jazz's helm so the hook dug into his glossa, preventing him from speaking. Energon flooded his mouth and Jazz choked on it, but still he held on with his magnets to the underside of the arm and tightened his hold on Lockdown's foot. "Didn't think so." 

The instant Lockdown jerked his hook free to deliver another blow Jazz pulled hard with everything he had, taking advantage of the fact that Lockdown was leaning over and holding onto him and nothing else to overbalance him and yank him over the edge. The weight on his crumpled horn and the pull on his arm supporting them both was agonizing, but the shock on Lockdown's face and the glow of the stasis field just below was beautiful. 

Jazz grinned, a jagged, dangerous smile that dripped energon as he looked down and wordlessly waved goodbye with his free hand before jabbing fingers still littered with crystal fragments into Lockdown's wrist. The bounty hunter's grip failed and he fell, the temporary paralysis of surprise replaced by the more permanent stillness of stasis lock as he passed through the field to land, immobilized, in the bin below. A moment later the track shuddered forward, carrying him away and out of Jazz's sight. 

Barely able to process his success, Jazz hung motionless, waiting for the arm to finish its path to drop onto the frame of the stasis generator. His magnets almost disengaged too soon as the strained mechanisms shorted and ignited briefly before burning themselves out. It hurt as he cried out, energon continuing to bubble up in his mouth and causing him to gag. _It's not over until you cross the finish line,_ Jazz thought, grateful for the odd calm settling over him. _Finish your job before you bleed out._

Feeling as though his processor had both simultaneously stopped working and kicked into overdrive, Jazz looked around for a way to the top, analysing each piece of equipment for possibilities. He still couldn't move quickly, in fact he would be even slower now than before with the additional injuries, but if he took too long he'd drop into a completely different kind of stasis of his own. He needed a shortcut. 

A memory triggered as he spotted another series of suspended grates. An accident when he'd been helping set up backstage many years ago had almost put him in the hospital after he and Switchstep had been showing off to each other in the rafters. They had slipped and snapped a cable, one end winding around Jazz's foot and flinging him into the ceiling as his heavier friend fell tangled in the other, providing a counterweight on the other side of the pulley. 

The cables holding the grates in place ran through a series of pulleys several stories up. Jazz might not be able to raise the platforms himself, but he could drop them and ride a cable up as they fell. He could even use the momentum to continue past the point where the pulleys were fixed, as long as he angled himself so he wouldn't hit anything when he let go. 

_Time to fly._

He jumped to the nearest grate and released three of the four cables, grabbing onto one of the loose ends as it pulled away. It worked every bit as well as he'd planned and then some, the grate being so much heavier than he was that the speed he was going at by the end was enough to send him flying all the way up to the topmost level of the plant. The conveyor he landed on wound around the wall to a large archway marked with a sign for the stadium. 

In spite of the increasingly persistent warnings on his HUD Jazz set out at a steady pace, letting the movement of the conveyor speed his progress until he stepped off onto the path to the exit. He couldn't transform to drive and couldn't sustain a run, but he wasn't being chased now. His slow walk was enough to bring him out finally into the stadium and into the light of day. 

He didn't even hear the crowd as he stepped unceremoniously across the line and he was several paces past it before he realized he could finally stop. It was a good thing the medics were already rushing to meet him because as soon as he did he suddenly felt every one of his injuries again and collapsed where he stood. Safe at last, the pain and terror he'd been suppressing overwhelmed him and he curled in on himself on the ground, helpless as he began to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo, the Challenge is finally over! And of course Jazz is the Champion. Too bad victory wasn't exactly easy, but then, everyone knew that would be the case, right? The story isn't over yet though - he's still got one more thing he needs to do now that he's won (once everyone has a chance to recover!), and there are a few other loose ends floating around as well...
> 
> Edit: OMG THERE IS ART FOR THIS!! [Chaoswolf12](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaoswolf12/pseuds/Chaoswolf12) drew a fantastic thing [here](http://chaoswolf12.tumblr.com/post/133646935258/ever-since-i-read-this-scene-in-winner-takes-all)!! *rolls around happily* I am smiling so much I can't even words. Thank you so much! <3 <3 <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long overdue conversation is had at last, and a very important question is asked.

"-azz? Jazz? Are you with us?"

He hadn't been, Jazz realized. His optics and audials - _audial_ , only one was functioning at the moment - were on, but somehow he had lost track of his surroundings and was only now becoming aware of them again. It wasn't an entirely new experience, but the usual cause was infinitely preferable to what had triggered it this time.

 _Gettin' lost in a performance ain't the same as runnin' for your life through the obstacle course from the Pit._ Part of him didn't feel ready to face that reality and wanted to shy back away from it into non-awareness for a little while longer. But he remembered, there was something important, a reason he'd been willing to put himself through it all in the first place… _Prowl!_

"Pr-!! Oww..." Jazz started to raise a hand to his face as pain shot through his mouth at the first syllable and had to stop, wincing when that hurt too. Aches bloomed across his sensornet and damage warnings resurfaced on his HUD, but this time they were externally suppressed before they could overwhelm him. Jazz looked up at the mech talking to him while reaching out to the foreign presence in his processor. His queries were met with a physical nod and an electronic handshake.

"Welcome back," the mech said gently, his red and white plating and red decals proclaiming him a medic. "I'm First Aid. You collapsed on the race track and went into shock, so we brought you in for treatment." Jazz could feel him running a scanning routine as he spoke. [You didn't lose consciousness, but you did stop responding for a while there completely so I’m checking your processor for damage now,] he explained across the diagnostic link. [Fortunately it doesn't look like you’ve suffered anything lasting, but you do have a lot of very tangled data to sort through. You're in for a rough few recharge cycles, I'm afraid.]

[Already knew that,] Jazz replied. [And I know I'm banged up all to scrap too, but can you just patch me up enough to get me on my feet for now and do the rest later? There's someone I really need to see.]

"You’re going to need some extensive repairs to be ‘patched up enough’ to make your way up to the podium, Jazz. They’ve pushed back the Challenge’s concluding ceremonies a day per the delayed medical schedule, in fact! But don’t worry,” First Aid’s EM field warmed as he smiled. [You won’t have to wait that long to see him.] His visor flickered in a wink. “My mentor is going to take over your care now that you’re stabilized. He’s an excellent medic, the very best on Cybertron. You won’t be out of action for long.”

[Hold on! What do you mean?] Jazz’s helm snapped toward First Aid as the medic moved to disconnect. [How do you know–]

[–that you want to find Prowl?] First Aid finished his question. [Everyone on Cybertron saw that showdown between you and Lockdown. I doubt there was a single mech watching who missed the look on your face after what he said. Now I’m not a romantic fanbot like some mechs out there,] he said, sounding slightly defensive, [but it was pretty clear to me in that moment who you were racing for and who you’d want to see when you crossed the finish line.]

Jazz felt his face heating up. [Primus, I forgot all about them televisin’ the whole thing!] Looking away didn’t help him escape the humor he could feel coming from First Aid, and he cringed with embarrassment. [That means he was watching too…]

[He was,] First Aid confirmed. “You shouldn’t try to speak until that puncture wound has something other than a temporary patch on it, so if you have any questions please use your comm. You have my frequency and here’s Ratchet’s so you can talk to either one of us if you need to.” Jazz received a brief data burst with the new frequency. [But I think there’s someone else you should call first. He’s really worried about you right now.]

Jazz looked at him suspiciously. [And just how do you know that? Please tell me they didn’t put Prowl up on the big screen and make a spectacle outta him, he’d _hate_ that.]

[No they didn’t, though if they’d had access to him I’m sure they would have tried. I should probably tell you something before you call him,] First Aid said, switching to comms as he unplugged from Jazz’s systems and spooled his cables back up. [I know he’s frantic to see you because I was just with him.] He put a careful hand preemptively on Jazz's chassis to keep him from trying to get up. [His colleague brought him in a little over halfway through the race – he’s going to be okay!] He rushed to assure him. [But he’s been under a tremendous amount of stress and he had a partial systems crash earlier.]

[A partial systems crash you call okay?!] Jazz exclaimed, struggling against First Aid’s hand despite the pain it caused him. [Lemme up! If he’s here and he’s hurt I don’t want to call him, I want to see him!]

A second pair of hands appeared and held him down before he could injure himself further. “Stop that right now or I’ll drop you into stasis and save myself a whole lot of trouble,” a gruff voice told him. “First Aid, I think you’ve done enough here. Go see to your other patient.” Jazz didn’t hear First Aid reply but he did feel him withdraw as a new face came into view above him. “Are you going to settle down?”

Taking a guess, Jazz answered on the frequency First Aid had given him. [You’re Ratchet, right? Please, Prowl is his other patient, isn’t he? I need to see him!]

[I am,] Ratchet replied, but he didn’t loosen his hold on Jazz. [I need an answer from you before we do anything else – are you going to work with me here or not?]

Jazz stilled, the mech’s no-nonsense tone making it very clear that he’d meant what he said about putting him in stasis if he didn’t. [I’ll be good, promise. I’ll be the picture of cooperation! But can’t I see Prowl first? Please? Just for a minute?]

Ratchet fixed him with a look and started to say something before pausing as though listening to another comm. He rolled his optics and sighed a moment later. [ _Normally_ I’d say no, you’re in no condition to go anywhere and seeing you like this would only distress Prowl,] he said. [But I’ve just been reminded of a complication that means we’re going to have to move you anyway and he already saw how badly you were hurt watching the coverage of the Challenge. I suppose you might as well wait with him while we’re getting ready to go and prove to him you’re not dead.]

[Thank you! Thank you,] Jazz said gratefully, relaxing beneath Ratchet’s hands. [What do you mean, complication? I thought going to the hospital was a given.]

“Remember: don’t. Move. All right? And let me know if anything starts hurting worse than it already does,” Ratchet told him and Jazz heard the lock on the wheels of the mobile medical berth disengage. “Technically you’re stable, but I’d have been more comfortable doing at least a little more field work here before taking you back to the hospital for the more complicated stuff.” They began moving as he continued over the line. [This isn’t exactly a typical situation.]

It hadn’t escaped Jazz’s notice that while both First Aid and Ratchet had been speaking to him out loud, neither of them had mentioned Prowl by name except over closed comms. [There’s more going on than us bein’ hurt, isn’t there?]

[There is, and I don’t have time to go into all the details right now. The bottom line is we need to move both of you to a more secure location. Hopefully it’ll turn out to be an unnecessary precaution, but I’m not about to risk my patients’ safety on it ‘probably’ or ‘most likely’ being safe here.] He continued normally as if nothing was wrong. “Some of your unique mods will still need to be replaced later by a specialist. I'd recommend reaching out to whoever installed them originally; the cost will be covered by the Festival, just like your care now.”

Jazz didn’t have anything to add to either the spoken or unspoken conversation so he remained quiet as Ratchet wheeled him past the curtain. As soon as he did, all his attention shifted to the mech on the other berth occupying the space. Laying there with an energon drip and several diagnostic leads trailing from his frame, helm turned so pale blue optics could follow their progress, was Prowl. “Don’t. Move!” Jazz heard Ratchet say again and he realized he’d started to raise his arm to reach out without being aware of it. He dropped it back down, hissing as the damaged appendage hit the berth.

[Sorry Ratchet,] he sent quickly to the medic as he hurriedly called up a frequency he knew as well as his own. [Prowler?]

He wasn’t sure what to call the look on Prowl’s face as the call connected. It encompassed far too many emotions, and as the Praxian Enforcer answered him, the subglyphs and overtones in his message were just as confusing. [Jazz. What were you thinking? Why did you do it?!]

Jazz hesitated, trying to figure out whether Prowl was angry or relieved, offended or grateful, indifferent or desperate. Ratchet finished sliding the berth he was on into place next to Prowl and locked the wheels as he tried to decide what he should say, what he could say to explain everything he had done and why.

“I’ll be back in just a moment, Jazz,” Ratchet said, motioning First Aid to join him as he left the curtained area. The younger medic stepped away from the monitors around Prowl and followed Ratchet out wordlessly, though he flashed a brief thumbs up in Jazz’s direction as he passed him. Jazz barely noticed, his gaze fixed on Prowl.

 _You owe him the truth,_ Jazz told himself, gathering his courage as Prowl continued to stare at him, waiting for an answer. _All of it, nothin’ held back._ He swallowed painfully, the taste of his own energon thick in his mouth. _But where do I start?_

[I…that’s…the thing is…] he stammered, mentally slapping himself. _Mech you have never been at a loss for words in your life and now is_ not _the time to start!_ [I did it because I had to. I was thinkin’ someone needed to protect you if you weren’t gonna protect yourself, and I wanted to be that someone. I want to _always_ be that someone.] He could feel his frame shaking as the admission built, the fear of rejection and the fear of saying nothing finally weighing in equally and cancelling each other out. At last he found the courage to say the words he’d been wanting to say for so long. [I love you, Prowl. I did it because I love you.]

There was a beat of complete silence and stillness. Then that smile, that small, precious smile slowly curved Prowl’s lips and he reached across the narrow space between them. His hand moved haltingly as he searched for an uninjured part of Jazz that he could touch, finally coming to rest on his upper arm. His fingers curled lightly before clinging with a fierce strength. [You do?] His field was full of raw hope.

Jazz felt as though his spark would burst from its chamber. [Yes!] He gave his feelings free reign in his field as he reached back, buffeting Prowl with undiluted affection and joy. [I’ve been in love with you for vorns, I just didn’t know how to tell you! I didn’t want to put something on you that you didn’t want. I respect you too much for that!]

[Unlike some mechs we both know?] Prowl said pointedly. Then he glanced away, looking nervous and uncertain. [Why?] he asked quietly. [Why would you love me?]

[Because,] Jazz floundered for an explanation, unsure how to put it so that Prowl would believe him. [I’m happy when I’m with you.]

[But wouldn’t you be happier with someone else? Someone like Blaster?]

[No.] His denial was so immediate that Prowl startled and looked up at Jazz’s face again. [Blaster and I are friends and I get along with him real well, but you…] Jazz smiled somewhat ruefully. [I don’t know how to say it other than that. I like being with you, I like who I am with you, and I want to be with you when we’re apart. Isn’t that love?]

A look of recognition crossed Prowl’s face. [I was so afraid of losing you,] he admitted. [The thought of what Lockdown would do to me was nothing compared to the thought of him killing you. I don’t think I could have taken it. Is that love, too?]

Jazz’s control broke. Ignoring his promise to Ratchet and the twinge in his scorched palm, he reached across his frame to lay his hand over Prowl’s. [That’s love in my book. I told Blaster I’d rather die than let that walking scrap-pile get his filthy hands on you for the same reason. What happened to me didn’t matter, as long as you were okay.]

Despite his clear exhaustion, Prowl pulled his hand back briefly to lever himself up on the berth and stood, grabbing a stool to sit closer to Jazz. His hand came back to its position on his arm when he had settled and Jazz covered it again with his own. “I won’t be okay if something happens to you, Jazz,” he whispered. “Please don’t ever do something like this again.”

[Hey,] Jazz said soothingly, wishing he could do more to ease the anguish in Prowl’s voice. [Don’t worry, I’d prefer not bein’ dead myself. Which, you’ll notice, I’m not.] He laughed softly, then sobered. [I know it was a close call, Prowl. I know I’m hurt pretty bad right now. But it’ll be fine; the medics’ll fix me up good as new and it’ll be like none of this ever happened. Please smile for me again and tell me you’re going to be all right too?]

[I will be,] Prowl said after a pause, and while he did manage to smile it was a little bit strained. [It will be several days before I am fully recovered, however.]

[Well I’m not optimistic about an overnight recovery myself,] Jazz joked. [Though they say I’ll be able to get up on the podium tomorrow to be crowned Adaptus’s new Champion.] Prowl’s hand tightened on his arm and his EM field wobbled. Jazz steadied him even as his own nervousness resurfaced. [They’re gonna ask me a question tomorrow, you know. But I need to ask you one first. Prowl, I love you with all my spark – would you do me the honor of letting me court you?]

“Yes!” Prowl’s doorwings shivered happily as his whole face lit up, and Jazz couldn’t remember ever seeing those optics so bright. [I love you too, Jazz. And my answer is yes.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally something happy :D I hope everyone was looking forward to this as much as I was and is just as thrilled to see them finally admit what everyone already knew.
> 
> Edit: Wow there's fanart for this chapter! [glitzbot](http://glitzbot.tumblr.com/) on tumblr illustrated Prowl and Jazz together [here](http://glitzbot.tumblr.com/post/131537952518/this-is-a-scene-from-rizobacts-awesome-fic-winner) and it's beautiful! *smiles blissfully at how wonderful they are* Thank you, I love it! <3


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are things winding up or winding down? Some of our heroes get a chance to rest, while others may be about to find themselves in a bit of trouble.

When the medics returned, too soon as far as Prowl was concerned, Jazz wouldn’t let go of his hand. Reluctantly Prowl pulled away, dipping his helm along with his doorwings in silent apology at Ratchet’s disapproving frown.

“I’ll be good, you said,” Ratchet said, words dripping sarcasm. “Picture of cooperation, you told me. Funny; last time I looked up cooperation in the dictionary, a mech in need of critical care disobeying medical orders to remain still and risking further injury to himself wasn’t the accompanying image.” His glare transferred from Jazz to Prowl as his voice dropped in volume. “And as worried as you were for him, I thought I could count on you not to encourage him.”

[I only moved my hand,] Jazz protested, speaking on a general frequency so both mechs could hear him. [It didn’t even hurt!]

“If it didn’t hurt, how come you haven’t moved it back then, hmm?” Ratchet stalked over to the berth, clearing the doorway for First Aid to follow him in and make his way over to Prowl. “Did you just lose interest?” The hiss that escaped Jazz as Ratchet maneuvered his arm back across his frame to rest beside him betrayed him. “That’s what I thought. You had your chance and you blew it – stasis it is.”

[No! You don’t have to - ] Jazz began to say but Ratchet was already establishing the medical hardline connection to override his systems and force a shutdown.

[Let him,] Prowl told him. [We have to move and you’ll be in pain the whole way if you’re online.]

[Yeah, about that, why do we have to move? What’s going on? Why’re you even here? First Aid said you’d crashed!] The questions tumbled one after another at a rapid pace, and Prowl knew he wouldn’t have time to answer any of them before Ratchet finished as he watched Jazz’s visor flicker and start to dim.

[I’ll explain everything later,] he promised instead.

[You will? All of it?] Jazz asked hopefully. [Then you’re still gonna be here… when I…wake up…?]

[I will.] Prowl said as he dropped off completely. Switching frequencies, he hailed Ratchet and First Aid on a shared private line. [Are we leaving soon then?]

[Yes, I’m taking Jazz now and you’re going with First Aid as soon as he gets all that put away.] Ratchet waved a hand at the diagnostic leads the younger medic was busy detaching and directed his next question to him. [That’s not going to take you very long, right?]

First Aid shook his helm. [We’ll be right behind you.]

Unlocking the wheels of the berth Jazz was resting on, Ratchet headed out. [I’ll take excellent care of him,] he reassured Prowl. [So take care of yourself.] Then he was gone.

Prowl turned to First Aid. [Are you going to require me to be in stasis as well?]

[I want to say yes,] First Aid said. [You really need to rest.]

[But you are not going to insist?] Prowl was a little bit surprised.

[Ratchet would, but…] First Aid sighed and offered a hand to help Prowl stand. [No. You need a long, uninterrupted recharge cycle so you can fully power down your processor and run a full defrag, not a short nap in standby while we’re on the road. I’d rather not drop you down just to have to bring you back up when we get there.]

Rather than heading out the front the way Ratchet and Jazz had gone, First Aid led Prowl around to one of the personnel entrances and transformed. Prowl levered himself up into the medic’s alt mode and lay still as they took off quietly. Ostensibly First Aid was just returning to the hospital for supplies, not transporting a patient, so he drove at normal speed without his sirens. “I will recharge once I have had a chance to check in with Bluestreak and find out the status of his investigation. And once Jazz is out of surgery,” Prowl said.

[That’s going to take some time, you know,] First Aid replied. [And I am going to insist you stay in the berth once we get there. No going off to the precinct to assist!]

“That was not my intent. I am perfectly capable of working remotely,” Prowl told him. “I was hoping you would help me with something else, however.”

[So long as it’s reasonable,] First Aid said.

“You mentioned earlier that you had a brother on the force. Would you be willing to call him in to take my statement while I wait for Bluestreak to contact me?” Prowl paused. “If you believe he can be trusted with this, that is.”

[Of course he can!] First Aid said adamantly, though he didn’t sound offended by Prowl’s concern. [Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure you’ve worked with him before. His name is Streetwise.]

Prowl checked his memory files; his processor was slower to respond than usual, but when the result popped up he was pleased with what he saw. “Yes, I have, although not recently. I would feel comfortable working with him again.”

[Then I’ll have him join us at the hospital as soon as he can.] There was a pause as another call came in, and when First Aid spoke again he sounded concerned. [That was Ambulon – he told me we left just in time. The medics brought Lockdown in off the course just as we were leaving, and Barricade showed up only a couple minutes later looking for both of you.]

“What did he tell him?”

[He took him back to see Lockdown but said that he hadn’t treated you so he didn’t know what your status was. He’s stalling for time, but he’s not going to be able to buy that much. Are you sure you won’t let me take you to another facility instead?]

“No.” _I want to be where Jazz is._ Prowl thought for a moment. “Can he tell the captain that is what I chose to do, rather than going to the hospital?” he asked.

[That’s the recommendation I put in the chart. If Barricade insists on being allowed to review it, that’s what he’ll see.]

“I would not ask you to falsify records,” Prowl said, but First Aid stopped him.

[Nothing’s been falsified, don’t worry.] The medic’s voice was calm. [It’s my honest recommendation, after all. And the notes don’t specify a cause for your collapse beyond “stress and inadequate maintenance”.] His tone lightened as he teased. [I could hardly put down potential sparkbreak as the cause, now could I?]

Prowl sighed. First Aid had been bringing that up ever since the moment Lockdown had revealed to Jazz that Prowl had feelings for him. He had been so mortified to have that announced for everyone on Cybertron to hear that he’d almost missed Jazz’s response, but First Aid had pounced on it. He’d rushed to grab a second monitor, gleefully searching the stations for a replay and recording it as Prowl had watched, spark in his throat, while Jazz fought against the bounty hunter and pulled of his incredible victory. First Aid had left him with it when he’d gone to make sure “his Jazz”, as he kept calling him, was all right when they brought him in off the course, telling Prowl that he needed to take a good, hard look at Jazz’s face after Lockdown’s revelation on the video.

At first Prowl hadn’t seen what First Aid was talking about, unable to hear the hope in Jazz’s voice that had distracted him long enough for Lockdown to grab hold of him past his own doubts. When First Aid had insisted when he came back that “his Jazz had a thing for him”, however, and told him that the first word Jazz had tried to say even through the damage to his glossa had been his name…Prowl had allowed himself to hope as well, just a little. And somehow, miraculously, that hope hadn’t been vain.

Hearing Jazz say that he loved him had almost been too incredible to believe. It was still almost unbelievable now, in fact. _Perhaps Jazz is feeling the same way,_ he thought. _Everything must be incredibly surreal to him right now after what he just went through._ He might have survived the Challenge, but that didn’t mean he would be free of long-term consequences and fallout. Prowl had had bad memory purges for several days after his first truly rough case, and he’d had both preparation for it and support in the field. It hadn’t even come close to Jazz’s experience in terms of personal danger or physical damage, either. _I’ll help him through it, no matter how long it takes,_ he resolved. _As long as he wants me there, I will be there for him._

[You spaced out there, Prowl. Daydreaming about your Jazz, or are you experiencing errors again?] First Aid’s words swiftly changed to a more professional tone. [Some lag is to be expected until you’ve had more time to recover, but you shouldn’t be unable to speak.]

“I am not spacing out,” _and I am not discussing Jazz with you._ “How soon will we be arriving at the hospital?”

[Let me know if that changes, all right?] First Aid said. [It’ll be a few more minutes before we get there, then a bit longer to get inside and move you to a room since we’ll be sneaking in through supply.]

“Understood.” Prowl frowned. “Is the captain still with Lockdown in medical back at the stadium?”

[Why? Are you worried he might already be following us?]

“Actually I was wondering if Ambulon might be able to overhear anything that would indicate who he’s likely to pursue first – myself, or Bluestreak,” Prowl said. “I had to abort the calculation I was running to determine which was more likely due to those errors you wanted me to mention.”

[Send me a copy of the error log – I’ll call him back and see what he can find out.]

***

As soon as the worn looking medic had shown him to the curtain area Lockdown had been taken to, Barricade sent him off again to find him some answers about Prowl. “I know he’s here, one of my officers brought him in when he started having trouble earlier today. If you weren’t the medic treating him, find out who was and bring them here, along with his chart. I have the authorizations, so don’t argue with me. Just do it.”

The medic seemed a little disgruntled over being summarily ordered away from his patient but didn’t argue after a long look at the Enforcer’s hard expression. With a muttered “I’ll see what I can do,” he turned back the way they’d come, leaving Barricade alone with the injured bounty hunter.

“Well,” Barricade said as he walked up to Lockdown. “For a mech as smart as you are, you just made a _really_ stupid mistake.” The black and green mech was still partially paralyzed from the stasis field that Jazz had dropped him through, but his face was mobile and he scowled at the insult. “I’ve got a nice little public relations problem to deal with now thanks to you.”

“Public relations problem?” Lockdown snarled. “Who cares about your public relations problem?! That little glitch wasn’t supposed to be able to win!” His optics flashed dangerously. “Where is he?”

Barricade leaned in closer. “You. Screwed. _Up!_ ” he rumbled. “They moved him before bringing you in. _Apparently_ they thought you might be a danger to him if you were too close together when the stasis wore off after your little temper tantrum. What part of planet-wide broadcast slipped your processor back there?”

Lockdown didn’t have a comeback to that, but he also didn’t look sorry. Barricade huffed frustratedly, pulling back slightly. “I did my part. It’s not my fault you choked in the final stretch. I just wanted to let you know you couldn’t have made a worse mess of things if you’d tried, and I don’t appreciate having to pick up the pieces.” He fixed Lockdown with a dangerous look of his own. “The deal was none of this would come back to me,” he said, voice almost a whisper.

“It _won’t_ ,” Lockdown said, lowering his volume as well despite clearly still being angry. “Prowl’s not going to press charges, there’s nothing he can claim. What’s he going to do, whine about how you made him do his job and that I said some things a few sensitive mechs will find distasteful? He doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on. Unless you screwed up too, which won’t be my fault.” He grinned as he turned the captain’s words back on him.

The dark Praxian fought down the urge to punch the mech lying prone on the berth. “I still have to deal with the fact that no one in Praxus is going to look very fondly on us contracting with you for the foreseeable future thanks to those distasteful comments,” he said. “Some mechs already have a problem with bounty hunters in general, and your display out there makes you in particular someone I’m going to be under pressure to get rid of.”

Red optics narrowed. “Is that a threat, captain?” Lockdown drawled. “Because if it was, I have a few I’d like to make as well. Want to hear some of them?”

Barricade’s armor plating bristled and his engine made an ugly sound, but he shook his helm. “No, you’ve said more than enough already that never should have been aired in public.”

“Whether I say any more is up to you,” Lockdown’s purr was gloating. “I’m not the one who did anything wrong.”

“No, you’re not,” Barricade said resentfully, then smiled a wicked grin of his own. “But you are the one who lost. You lost the race, and,” he laughed, eager to drive the point home, “you lost Prowl. You can bet he was one of the ones watching when you made that speech to Jazz. He might not be able to take you to court over anything you said about him personally, but he’s certainly never going to bond with you now. And after seeing the look on Jazz’s face when you told him that he loved him? It wouldn’t surprise me if tomorrow the little dancer finds the bearings to ask for him when he’s up there on the podium and Prowl actually manages to say yes.”

“That mech is as oblivious as they come, and gullible too,” Lockdown said, his bravado ringing slightly false. “If I tell Prowl that Jazz was just stunned that he would be stupid enough to think he had a chance with him when he’s got all those adoring fans to pick from who would be a better frag than him, he’ll believe me.”

“Not if he turns on any news broadcast at all today, he won’t,” Barricade countered. “Why don’t I leave you with this while I get started on that damage control?” He stepped over to grab the monitor sitting beside the other unoccupied berth and placed it where Lockdown could see it before switching it on.

It was currently showing a live feed of a reporter talking with the members of Jazz’s band in the stands. “Well now, that’s all speculation at this point, ain’t it? Sure I’ve got my guesses who he’s gonna ask for tomorrow, but I’d hate to spoil th’ surprise for everyone! You’ll just have to wait and see.” Blaster was standing in front of the other two, smiling and acting as the spokesmech. “I’ll give you a hint though! I’ve been hearin’ round the crowd that y’all think _I’m_ the one – sorry to disappoint! Jazz has been a good friend to me for many vorns, but it ain’t anything more serious than that for either one of us. But don’t cry, my loyal fans!” He winked at the reporter. “That means I’m still single!”

The reporter laughed along with several mechs in the audience close enough to have heard Blaster’s comment. “That is good news! But tell me Blaster: Jazz talked about a mech named Prowl when he went up against that fiend Lockdown, the same Enforcer Prowl that Lockdown announced his intention to ask for upon his victory, according to our sources. Some of the things he was saying sounded very protective. Does Jazz see Prowl as just another good friend?”

“Hey now, that’s a pretty personal question! I’m not prepared to comment on that!” His expression turned conspiratorial as he leaned towards the reporter. “Though it ain’t no secret they’ve known each other a long time.”

Barricade chuckled. “See? Everyone’s already putting two and two together. And Prowl’s not so bad at math he can’t do a little simple addition, especially not with all of Cybertron helping him reach the right answer.”

Lockdown looked like if he had been able to he would have put his hook through the screen. Barricade didn’t really feel like sticking around until he could. It would probably come flying off the hook again in his direction. Without another word he left, intending to find the medic again. His next move depended entirely on finding out how much Prowl had told Bluestreak and whoever had treated him, which meant he needed to know who that was and where the three of them were now.

He’d barely passed the curtain when he encountered the patchy mech on his way back with a datapad in hand. “Captain. I was just coming to see you,” he said, halting and passing over the chart. “First Aid was the primary medic on Prowl’s case. He’s not currently on the premises, but there’s a copy of the chart. Can I see to my patient now?”

Barricade’s doorwings rose aggressively as he read the chart. The wording was pretty minimal, but it certainly looked as though Prowl had at least said something to First Aid. “When you say he’s not on the premises, do you mean First Aid, or Prowl?” he asked. “What about the officer that brought them in, Bluestreak?”

“None of them are here. I suggest you try calling them. Now please, I need to make sure that my patient doesn’t suffer any lasting damage from the industrial stasis generator he so inconveniently found himself on the wrong side of.” The medic sounded less than enthused to be working on Lockdown, and given the status of the other mechs occupying the berths in the tent, several dying and a few already dead and grayed, Barricade supposed he couldn’t fault him for resenting the cause. Especially not when he shared the sentiment at the moment. It was certainly a credit to the mech’s professionalism and dedication.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Barricade stepped aside and started once more down the hall. “We both have things to do and mechs to take care of.”

He didn’t notice the mech stop short of the curtain and activate his comms. as he left the medical tent and headed out toward the highway. The precinct was closer than the hospital, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he’d find one of the mechs he was looking for there, snooping around things he had no business in.

***

“That was Ambulon again,” First Aid told Prowl as he ended his call. “Barricade’s heading out, but he doesn’t know where he’s going next. He said he did ask about all three of us though – you, me, and Bluestreak. He also said that Lockdown did sound ready to try something with Jazz. You were right. It’s a good thing we got him out of there!”

“I know Lockdown, that’s all. I am familiar with how he thinks and how he responds to things, so guessing his reaction to losing was not difficult even with a malfunctioning probability engine,” Prowl said flatly as he sank further down on the berth he’d just settled into. “Neither he nor the captain are going to take this well at all. I am concerned for Bluestreak.”

“So am I. Why don’t you tell him what’s been happening?”

“I do not want to risk compromising him by startling him with an unexpected call,” Prowl explained. “And there is a risk that the call would be intercepted, or at the very least recorded on the precinct server, which the captain has remote access to.”

“Well…” First Aid bounced nervously in place for a moment. “Tell you what. Streetwise is only halfway here and he’s coming from the north – would you like me to tell him to stop by the precinct first and find Bluestreak to warn him? My brothers and I are bonded; we don’t need comms. to talk to each other, and that kind of communication can’t be intercepted.”

Prowl’s optics widened. “Really? I was unaware. In that case, yes, please do. I can give my statement afterward when they are both able to come here.”

“I’ll let him know.” He paused. “Done!”

Just as he had said, there was no indication of long-distance communication that Prowl could see. He nodded approvingly. “Thank you. I suppose in the meantime you would have me get that rest?”

First Aid nodded. “Some of those errors weren’t as benign as they look at first glance. If you don’t do at least a partial defrag, every time you even start up a sim, whether you finish it or not, it’s going to generate trash and make sorting yourself out that much harder when you finally take the time.” He came over to help Prowl shift one of his doorwings into a more comfortable position. “I’ll wake you if Barricade shows up here, the front desk and security all know to inform me if they see him, though I told them it was because I needed to talk to him not because we’re trying to avoid him.”

“And…Jazz?” Prowl asked softly.

“Once Ratchet finishes with him, he’ll be bringing him here,” First Aid promised. “Records will show he’s in suite 404, but that room is actually under construction and doesn’t really exist. That way he’ll be harder to find, and so will you. I’m going to delay getting you put into the system entirely for as long as possible, though eventually I’ll have to update the chart and get you a fake room number too.”

“Thank you,” Prowl said simply as his optics dimmed, his field exhausted but trusting. “Please let me know if something happens to Bluestreak and Streetwise as well.”

First Aid brushed back gently with comfort and confidence. “I will. Do you need assistance entering recharge?” he asked, then smiled to himself. Prowl was already asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everybody! Wow, there were so many wonderful comments on the last chapter :D I have not updated this story with a final chapter count because I still don't know how many more there will be, but we are actually drawing near the end (I say, possibly naïvely). I'll let you know as soon as the muse tells me!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we take a brief moment to check in with our intrepid investigators and see how they're doing at the precinct.

Part of Bluestreak wished he had stayed to ask Prowl a few more questions before running off and coming to the precinct. He’d been here for a while now, but so far his search was turning up nothing and he couldn’t afford to keep wasting time on dead ends. Soon the Challenge would be over, if it wasn’t already, and someone would come back to the precinct and discover him. Realistically though, he knew that Prowl hadn’t been in any condition to answer questions when he’d left him. It would have cost him just as much time trying to get him to focus past his concern about Jazz, in all likelihood.

 _Besides,_ he reasoned, _while Prowl doesn’t lie, he_ does _omit information he doesn’t think is important, and somehow he got the stupid idea into his processor that what happens to him isn’t important._ That meant that even if he’d been able to get him to talk about what had happened, it probably wouldn’t have been very helpful as Prowl made Barricade’s excuses for him. Better to leave First Aid to try to talk some sense into him and make sure he didn’t fall over from his exhaustion while Bluestreak got to work with what he had. He just needed to think! What hadn’t he thought of already?

Even before the disturbing revelation of Lockdown’s scheme and figuring out that Barricade was helping him, it had been clear to Bluestreak that something was going on with the captain. Prowl had obviously been involved in something the night before, and just as obviously Barricade didn’t want that getting out. Bluestreak had started with that, his instincts telling him it was important somehow if he could just find the link. Barricade had been too eager to take charge of Prowl himself for the medical follow up, and the only report he had managed to turn up had Lockdown’s name on it and Lockdown’s name only. There was no mention of Prowl even being present, let alone injured and taken to see First Aid.

 _Coincidence? Not likely,_ Bluestreak thought. _But I need more than that, and this report isn’t proof of anything on its own._ It would show a cover-up by its omissions if he could find evidence that Prowl had been on the case, and the timing of some of the events – the anonymous threat coming in _right_ as Prowl was listed as clocking out and Lockdown apprehending the suspect almost as soon as he was called in – suggested that perhaps the threat had been orchestrated by one or both of them as a diversion, but it wasn’t definitive. Bluestreak had shuddered to think that Barricade would stoop so low as to fake a bomb threat and had both hoped and feared finding something more to support it, but he didn’t have anything more than speculation. Unfortunately with his lower rank and limited clearance there was only so much he could access without committing a crime himself, a problem he’d overlooked earlier in his eagerness to seize an opportunity.

After much careful searching, it was looking like any communications and dealings between the captain and the bounty hunter were either protected behind firewalls, stored privately, or not recorded at all. He was running out of ideas as well as time and was starting to wonder if there was anything he could do here after all. He was certainly beginning to see why Prowl had said nothing could be done.His doorwings twitched irritably. _I don’t want to accept that answer and I’m not ready to give up! I could sure use a bit of luck_ _right about now though…_

The sound of footsteps echoed in the hall. Bluestreak froze by the file storage unit he’d been querying at the back of the captain’s office at the first tap. _Oh, come on! That’s not the kind of luck I meant!_ Thinking quickly, he slid silently up to the desk and pulled a datapad from his subspace to pretend he’d come to deliver something and prepared to talk fast as a mech appeared in the door.

“Bluestreak?” he looked around the room and glanced back behind him before stepping inside. “I’ve got a message for you.”

Recognizing the other officer but not relaxing his guard, Bluestreak set the datapad down and smiled politely. “Is everything all right, Streetwise? I know you’ve got a lot to do today and I thought your beat was in the northern sector of the city and that’s a pretty long drive so why would you come all the way in to talk to me when you or whoever you’re delivering the message for could have just called?”

Streetwise came up closer to him before speaking again quietly. “I’m here because my brother thought you should know the captain might be heading here soon,” he said. “He and his patient were worried about you getting caught and asked me to pass that along since I was already heading this way to meet up with them. They didn’t want to call in case it got intercepted, I guess. He said you should wrap up and come with me before anyone gets here,” he said.

Bluestreak was pretty sure Streetwise had more than one brother; a quick check of the mech’s personnel file showed he actually had four, but there was no need to ask which one he was talking about as soon as he saw First Aid’s blue visored face in the lineup. His smile became more genuine as he picked his datapad up again and stowed it back in subspace. “Thank you, it’s nice to know they’re worried but I haven’t had much luck yet and I’m trying to think of things I might have missed or places I haven’t looked, I really want to find anything I possibly can before I go,” he told him. “I don’t want to leave empty handed, although I’m starting to worry that I might have to.”

“Really? That’s too bad. First Aid didn’t tell me exactly what you were looking for other than it was important and had to do with Lockdown and the captain,” Streetwise said. “He said Prowl wanted to talk to me about it. Is there anything I can do to help or to speed things up? We really shouldn’t stay long, you know. The Champion was hurt badly enough that they postponed the Crowning ceremonies until tomorrow so everything’s breaking up at the stadium.”

Bluestreak’s doorwings jerked in surprise. “Wait wait wait, it’s over? The Challenge is over? Who won? You said they were hurt, how badly hurt?” He would have kept asking questions but Streetwise held up a hand and jumped in.

“Jazz, and he’ll live. I only know what they’ve been broadcasting, but my brother can tell you what’s been happening behind the scenes when we get there.”

“Jazz won?!” Bluestreak had to force himself not to shout for joy. _Thank Primus! Prowl must be so relieved!_ “That’s fantastic!” he said, carefully controlling his volume.

“It’s a miracle,” Streetwise nodded. “Lockdown almost had him more than once – it was pretty intense to watch! I thought for a long time he was just toying with everyone and that he was going to win for sure, the way he was hunting them all down and picking them off one by one. He seemed to know every hidden place and secret shortcut in the whole course.”

“He did, didn’t he?” Bluestreak sobered, reviewing what he’d seen of the Challenge. Not once had Lockdown made a single misstep, and just like the extremely convenient timing on the incident report, that level of perfection was suspicious to the young Praxian. “I only saw up through part of the underground mine, but I never saw him take any wrong turns.”

Streetwise stood silently thinking for a moment, then a curious look spread across his face. ”You know, I don’t think I did either, and I watched the whole thing. That’s not very likely, is it?”

“Especially in the mine,” Bluestreak said. “That part of the course was designed for the racers to go wrong and lose time, and avoiding all of the pitfalls in an unknown obstacle course is almost a statistical impossibility.” An idea began spinning up in his processor. “I can’t run an analysis on the actual numbers as fast as someone like Prowl, but it I’m thinking it wasn’t actually all that unknown to him after all.”

“Maybe he had a map?” Streetwise suggested. “Though where he’s have gotten one, I haven’t a clue. The layout of the Challenge is confidential and kept under pretty tight security.”

“A map…Oh! That’s it! A map!” Bluestreak bounced in place almost gleefully. “Streetwise, tell me – who was in charge of securing that information?”

“Easy: the captain,” he replied.

“Exactly. The captain. And I’ll bet he gave a map to Lockdown.” He grinned. “It’s cheating for a participant to have foreknowledge of the course, and it’s illegal to provide it; all we need to do is find proof of what they did and we can take it to the authorities.” Whirling back to the desk, he started sifting through everything on top of it again. _Once they have cause to investigate him for that, they can get a warrant to do a full search and that will turn up any evidence there might be about that bomb threat and anything else I don’t know about and wasn’t able to find!_

Streetwise, however, looked skeptical. “You don’t really think the captain would leave an obvious trail even if he did do something like that, do you?”

“I think if there’s a chance that he did I need to look for it,” Bluestreak said, still searching. “Anyone can make a careless mistake, and he was doing a lot yesterday between messing with the schedule and causing problems and falsifying reports so maybe he missed something and if anything fell through the cracks we have to find it now before he has a chance to clean up after himself!”

The other officer shook his helm. “That information would be on an isolated server in a secure location, not lying out in the open on the desk.”

“Then why do I remember seeing earlier – ah hah!” Bluestreak said, lifting a datapad free of an unremarkable pile and waving it triumphantly. “This. When you mentioned a map I thought I’d seen one when I was looking through this stuff before but I was thinking about incident reports for last night not anything related to the Festival. But look,” he powered up the screen. “That’s the crystal maze right there. This datapad is proof he copied confidential information off a secure system and maybe even that he gave it to Lockdown if there’s an upload record on here.”

“You can’t just take that,” Streetwise argued. “And you have no idea if it will prove any of that. Maybe it’s just a capture from today’s news coverage. Don’t get me wrong; my brother may not have told me the details, but I know Lockdown’s a creep – _believe_ me, all of Cybertron knows it right about now – and if the captain was involved at all, that’s terrible. I’m not hoping that they get away with whatever crimes they’ve committed. But it’s your career if you’re wrong or make claims you can’t back up, and some of what you’ve been saying sounds like a pretty crazy conspiracy theory,” he pointed out.

“It’s my career if I don’t do anything,” Bluestreak said, once again pulling his decoy datapad out of subspace. “The captain is already suspicious of what I know because I took Prowl to see your brother today and he doesn’t know what they told me. I’m not going to wait around and see if he decides to get rid of me to eliminate that risk, and I’d rather be fired than let their _conspiracy_ ,” he emphasized the word, “do any more damage to Prowl.” He swapped the two pads and pocketed the map. “Anyway I’m not taking it: I came to deliver a report, got distracted, and left the wrong datapad by mistake. When I went back to switch it for the right one, I grabbed this one by accident. As soon as I discover my error I’ll hand it over to the authorities right away and let them know my suspicions while I’m at it and they can start an official investigation.”

“You’re still assuming that’s not just a vid capture,” Streetwise said. “And you’d have to find a mech who’d actually do something with baseless suspicions rather than just throwing them out to avoid wasting time.”

Bluestreak started for the door, motioning Streetwise to follow. “It can’t be a capture because the captain has been at the stadium all day for the Festival so there’s no way he would have been able to leave a recording taken during the race on his desk,” he said confidently. “And speaking of the Festival, I think I know just the mech to deliver this to. There’s a rather prominent figure in the Prime’s entourage known for his fairness and even more notably his thoroughness on legal matters.”

“His relentlessness, you mean,” Streetwise laughed. “Wow, you’re actually planning to approach _him_ with this? Do you really think you have enough for him to get involved?”

“He started a vorn and a half investigation into political corruption in Hydrax based on nothing more than a misplaced semicolon in a court transcript,” Bluestreak said. “It ended with two mechs in prison and another dozen being fined massive sums in reparations and damages. I think an illegal copy of a confidential map for a sacred event will be enough for Ultra Magnus to want to take a closer look at the captain, and a morally depraved bounty hunter trying to coerce an officer of the law into a nonconsensual bonding will more than offend his sensibilities. Those two aren’t going to stand a chance.”

Streetwise gave a low whistle of appreciation. “You’re really something, you know that? Come on, let’s go see my brother and Prowl and coordinate with them before taking the next step. When it comes to Ultra Magnus you can never be too prepared.”

They were almost out of the building when Streetwise suddenly blocked Bluestreak and pushed him back around the corner behind him. “Captain! Welcome back,” he called out. Behind his back he made a vehement shooing motion with one hand. “Is everything all right? You’re looking kind of frazzled. Anything I can do to help?”

Bluestreak edged back along the wall as Streetwise walked forward to intercept Barricade, ducking into the waiting room as silently as he could to watch for a chance to make a break for it. He’d either need to loop around through holding to the side exit or wait for them to move on and still go out the front. It sounded like he’d be able to do the latter. Barricade gave Streetwise a curt response and didn’t stop, continuing his march toward, presumably, his office. Bluestreak let out a relieved exvent as Streetwise peered in around the doorframe.

“It’s clear for now, get moving!” He walked over and sent him a short databurst with an address and a hospital room number. “That’s where Prowl is. I just checked with First Aid, he’s there with him. He said he’s resting at the moment but that he was waiting to hear from you, so go quickly and try not to draw too much attention. I’ll stay here and keep an optic on Barricade for now and join you later.”

“You should come too!” Bluestreak said. “If you stay here to report on his movements he’ll realize you’re involved too when he catches you sending us updates.”

“No, he won’t,” Streetwise assured him. “He’ll never hear me talking to First Aid, or any of my brothers for that matter, as long as I speak over our bond. You don’t have that advantage, plus you’re the one carrying the evidence so you have to get out of here, fast.”

“I thought Prowl needed to talk to you.”

“Prowl wanted to make an official statement, and you can take that just as well as I can.” He shrugged. “Actually you’re probably the better choice since Prowl already trusts you on this case; he and I have worked together before but the last time was a while ago and I don’t know if he’d be as comfortable talking to a stranger about something as personal as a stalker.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger than a friend,” Bluestreak countered, but Streetwise shook his helm.

“Not for Prowl, not when it’s about him.” He checked the hallway one last time. “Besides, this is your case. You should see it through.” Smiling again, he held the door open for him. “First Aid will let me know when you get there, so hurry up and get there!”

Bluestreak nodded and rested a hand on Streetwise’s shoulder for a second as he passed him. “Thank you. Keep him here as long as you can, and let me know if he notices anything out of place in his office. I was careful, but a warning would be nice if I missed something and accidentally tipped him off.” He walked quickly out of the precinct and dropped to his tires as soon as he reached the road, taking off as fast as he dared. He began searching through all the coverage of the Challenge on the datanet as he drove, hoping to find the footage of the end of the race. If he was going to talk to Prowl, he needed to know what had happened to Jazz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we have something a little different - I hope nobody minds Bluestreak stealing the show for a chapter. It just sort of...happened. I hope everybody who celebrates it had a happy Halloween yesterday! Happy Sunday :D


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more planning and a little more discussion as our heroes finish getting each other up to speed.

If he’d woken up feeling like this a day ago, Jazz would have called his friends to say he was hurting too much to drive or dance and that he was taking the day off. Thanks to Lockdown, however, he had an entirely new perspective on real pain. As he cycled up from stasis, Jazz found himself honestly grateful to be feeling as good as he did; compared to how much he’d been hurting at the end of the race, the lingering aches he was experiencing now seemed minor indeed.

Far more important than any physical pain was the knowledge that it was over and that Prowl was safe anyway. His injuries faded into insignificance as Prowl’s voice penetrated past the readout of damage reports and repair notices on his HUD. Jazz dismissed them without a second thought, caching them to review later and powered up his visor, turning his helm toward the sound.

“– n’t think that they will move that quickly on it,” Prowl was saying to a gray mech with Enforcer markings standing by the berth he was sitting on, frame relaxed but alert, the fatigue from earlier gone. Jazz recognized Bluestreak from the precinct and he hesitated to announce he was awake. Whatever they were talking about sounded important.

“And I’m sure they will! There’s technically already an investigation open with my name on it as the investigating officer since I had to put together a case file to process your statement and I can add what I found at the precinct to it so it’s all together and escalate it to the proper authorities.” Bluestreak sounded confident, but Prowl looked concerned.

“These things take time, Bluestreak. The case will have to go through a review process once you escalate it, and that can take several weeks under the best of circumstances. With the resources he has at his disposal to delay that process, it could be months before an Internal Affairs officer is assigned to it,” he said, the set of his doorwings indicating he was evaluating the scenario as he spoke. “There is a great deal of harm he can do in that interval, to both of us. I would still prefer to leave your name off the report for that very reason.”

“You can’t investigate your own case, so it has to be my name,” Bluestreak countered. “And I’m not escalating it to Internal Affairs, at least, not directly. I’m going over their heads.”

Prowl frowned. “You should follow standard procedure.”

“I am,” Bluestreak said, doorwings twitching emphatically. “It’s _standard procedure_ to bring suspicions of cheating before the Festival Committee, I’m just doing my job and reporting what I found and the fact that it happens to tie in to another case I was already working on that I _also_ submitted regularly to Internal Affairs is a complete coincidence.” He huffed his vents irritably. “It’ll serve him right to have the technicalities turned against him since he’s been using them against you all this time. I can’t believe he can really get away with everything he did yesterday with the schedule!”

“Actually, I don’t think he can,” came a voice from the door. “Prowl, you said you never clocked out yesterday and the accident happened while you were still working, which is what Barricade told me when he and Lockdown brought you in. He used the fact that it was a work related accident to sign you out against my advice – it’s right here on the chart. But the incident report Bluestreak found stated that you had just finished an overtime shift and couldn’t be called back in,” First Aid said, datapad in hand. “That’s a contradiction no matter which way he tries to spin it. Either he falsified the incident report, or he illegally obtained medical information and signed you out without the proper authority to do so.”

“Can we put that in the report?” Bluestreak asked, looking back and forth between them. “The chart, I mean. It’d be nice to include it when I send everything in up front, but I don’t have the authority to demand it and the two of you discussing what happened is a privileged conversation, all I can do is submit a request for the chart based on what Prowl said in his statement and the discrepancy between that and the incident report.”

“It’s my medical information, I can authorize releasing it.” Prowl motioned First Aid over and took the datapad, signing his glyph to the chart neatly. “Done.”

“Excellent!” First Aid nodded and took back the pad. “Bluestreak, why don’t you come with me and we’ll make sure you have everything you need? I think we should give them a little privacy anyway.”

Both Praxians turned to look at him at that and Jazz smiled carefully, resisting the urge to lift his arm to wave. _I am not makin’ that mistake again!_ he thought. [Good nightmornin’,] he said to Prowl before asking First Aid, [Can I move or talk again yet?]

The medic’s EM field buzzed with amusement. “Yes, you can, which you’d know if you’d read your alerts instead of dismissing them,” he said good-naturedly. “No getting up though! You can use the controls there to adjust the berth to sit up, but stay on it. Aaaand,” he added, drawing out the word almost teasingly despite his tone remaining serious. “No kissing! Your self-repair needs a little more time to work and vigorous activity could dislodge the patch in your mouth.”

Jazz didn’t flinch at the implication, but the brief flush of embarrassed excitement from Prowl had his spark skipping in its chamber. All his attention shifted to him and Jazz barely noticed the two mechs leaving and shutting the door.

Even though he’d been told he could talk, it took him a moment to figure out what to say as Prowl continued to sit there silently. “You’re still here,” Jazz said at last, trying and failing to keep the relief out of his voice.

Prowl seemed to shake himself and dipped his helm slightly in acknowledgement. “I promised I would be here when you woke up,” he said stiffly.

Jazz sighed and made a show of looking up at the ceiling. “Will you relax and get over _here_ here then?” He let his helm fall sideways again to catch Prowl’s optics. “And tell me I didn’t just dream hearin’ you say what you said before.”

The uncertainly melted from Prowl’s posture as he stood and crossed the room to take a seat next to Jazz. His hand was hesitant as he reached out for him, but the smile that lit his face as Jazz reached back and gripped it tightly was immediate. “If you meant the question, then I meant the answer.”

“Oh I meant it.” Chuckling, Jazz kept hold of Prowl’s hand as he began messing with the controls for the berth, trying to find a comfortable position. “I meant all of it – wantin’ to be with you, wantin’ to protect you…’course, I kinda wish I’d known what I was signin’ myself up for.” He winced as he shifted a bit too fast and swallowed a curse as he caught himself, the fresh welds smarting from the strain. “Then again, maybe it’s just as well I didn’t.”

“It was a completely foolish thing to do.” Prowl said. “I thought I was going to watch him kill you.”

Jazz winced again, this time out of guilt. “I didn’t think of that until I was standin’ on the starting line,” he admitted.

“I didn’t think you had.” Prowl sounded both exasperated and resigned. “You don’t think things through before you go ahead with them nearly often enough.”

“’S called improv, and it’s what got me through the Challenge,” Jazz pointed out. “No amount of planning coulda pulled me through that.”

“Perhaps not.” Prowl’s doorwings fell sadly and his EM field filled with remorse. “Better planning on my part could have made this entire situation avoidable, however. For that, I am sorry.”

Jazz squeezed the hand in his. “There’s nothing to forgive. Honestly, I don’t think there was anything either of us could have done by the time it got this far. You were right, telling Lockdown “no” was never going to work. I underestimated him.” He smiled, a harsh edge glinting on the edge of it. “He underestimated me worse though. And he paid for that.”

Prowl’s answering smile was sharp as well. “I’ll admit that it was gratifying to watch what you did to him. Part of me wishes I’d had the chance to throw a few punches at him myself.” Then he sobered. “Unfortunately, I’m sure you can appreciate now when I say he’s not the type of mech to accept defeat gracefully, even a complete and very public defeat like what he just suffered.”

“That’s why we had to move, isn’t it,” Jazz said, the pieces falling together. “They were bringin’ him in off the course and you figured we weren’t safe.”

“Y _ou_ weren’t safe,” Prowl corrected him. “I doubted very much that he would have let something so trivial as murder outside of the Challenge being illegal stop him from getting revenge on you if he could get to you, and Ambulon confirmed my suspicions shortly after we left.”

“Ambulon?”

“One of the other medics. He stayed behind at the stadium to treat Lockdown and reported that both he and the captain asked where you were almost as soon as they arrived.”

“Barricade did?” Jazz said, confused. “What did he want with me?” Then he frowned, visor darkening angrily. “That jerk _was_ tryin’ to set you up with Lockdown, wasn’t he? And he thinks I ruined it for them, doesn’t he?”

“He was, though I suspect he would say that you and Bluestreak and quite possibly First Aid are all responsible for their failure, if he isn’t blaming Lockdown for the entire thing. We have reason to believe that he has not only been unethically manipulating the legal system, but that he has also been committing outright illegal acts recently in an effort to help Lockdown achieve his goals and prevent anyone from interfering with their plans. Bluestreak believes he has found evidence that Barricade helped Lockdown to cheat in the Challenge.”

“What?!”

“He thinks he can use that to expedite an investigation into the captain’s full activities.” Prowl paused. “I promised that I would explain everything when you woke up. Would you still like me to now? A lot has happened in the last few hours, and you’ve only just woken up,” he warned him.

“All the more reason to catch me up,” Jazz said, forcing as much energy into his words as he could. “I don’t want to be left in the dark as things are finally coming to light.”

Prowl wasn’t fooled. “I will, but please,” he said. “Don’t strain yourself. You protected me by entering and winning the Challenge and suffered significant damage as a result. You do not need to do anything now besides focus on your recovery.”

“Yeah, I definitely want to hurry that up as much as possible,” Jazz grinned, unable to resist the opening. “I don’t think I care for the whole “no kissing” restriction. I’m lookin’ forward to them lifting it.”

Prowl didn’t seem to know what to make of that, and settled on a slightly rushed, “I’m sure that Ratchet and First Aid know what they’re talking about and will let you know when it’s all right to try something like that.”

Jazz laughed. “I’m sure they will. And I know exactly who I want to help me make sure I’m still able to do it. But for now,” he backed off, not wanting to push Prowl too far too fast, “how’s about you just keep holding my hand and tell me what I missed while I was running for my life and getting put back together again?”

He relaxed back into the padding of the berth as Prowl collected himself and began his recap. He’d been right that there was a lot to explain, but the entire time he never loosened his grip on Jazz’s hand. He continued to hold on to him as though he didn’t intend to ever let him go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short but sweet. There's one more confrontation coming up, and the good guys need to be ready for it! They're trying to cover all their bases; we'll see if their preparations are enough soon :)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to jump back in time for some insight into our villain!

I'm putting a placeholder of sorts here to point to the new update for this week since I posted it as a separate story: [Losing It All](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5215607). Basically, it's the confrontation from the end of the race from Lockdown's perspective :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand I have to put this here too! [Chaoswolf12](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaoswolf12/pseuds/Chaoswolf12) drew a fantastic piece of art for this scene [here](http://chaoswolf12.tumblr.com/post/133646935258/ever-since-i-read-this-scene-in-winner-takes-all) and I am just *flails* Thank you for this!!! <3 <3 <3


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two loose ends left to tie up...one of them thinks he can slip the noose, but he wasn't counting on the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord. The other...well, you'll have to read and see XD

It hadn’t surprised Prowl when Jazz drifted off on him while he was relating what had happened off the course. The dancer had just come through a major ordeal and surgery, after all, and his visor had been dimming for the last several minutes. He’d been making an obvious effort to stay alert through Prowl’s explanation of the finer legal points and technicalities of the case that Bluestreak was putting together, but his responses had gradually become more and more noncommittal and fewer and farther between before finally stopping entirely. The fingers of the hand clasped in Prowl’s slackened as his venting evened out and he slipped under, energy temporarily spent.

The only surprising thing was how long he’d held out, really. Prowl had made it almost to the point where Jazz had woken up to eavesdrop on his conversation with Bluestreak before the exhausted mech had succumbed to recharge. It didn’t bother him though; Prowl had meant it when he’d told Jazz that he didn’t need to worry about the investigation and should concern himself with his recovery. There were other mechs taking care of that, and doing such a good job of it that there wasn’t anything for Prowl to do at the moment either. Until Bluestreak got some kind of response, and Prowl still didn’t think a quick response was likely despite the younger mech’s optimism, his own part in the proceedings was done.

Normally not having anything to do would have bothered Prowl. For now, however, as the sun prepared to dip below the horizon, he was content to sit silently with Jazz at the end of a very long day. Prowl watched as his friend slept, basking in the muted presence of his EM field and gently stroking the hand in his. It was a liberty he never thought he’d be allowed, and he wondered when the novelty would wear off and it would stop feeling like a dream. _Hopefully never_ , he thought.

Prowl frowned, detecting a slight disturbance. He reached out with his own field, letting his wonder and happiness roll gently over the beginnings of fear and panic he felt rising from Jazz. It worked and Jazz relaxed, nightmare aborted. _For now._ Prowl knew that there would be no escaping them completely, but he didn’t think it was fair Jazz should have to suffer them so soon. Not when he was still injured and it would cause him physical pain in addition to the strain on his processor.

He turned at the soft tap at the door before it opened to admit First Aid. The medic didn’t seem concerned to find Prowl out of his berth or that Jazz was resting again and came over to check one of the monitors beside him. “How long did he stay awake?” First Aid asked softly, careful not to disturb him.

“Longer than I expected.” _Longer than he should have._ Prowl shifted minutely to allow better access for the medic without letting go of Jazz’s hand. “Will he really be recovered enough for the formal Ceremony tomorrow?”

“Oh, yes! Ratchet would have insisted on another postponement if that weren’t the case.” First Aid sounded very certain, which was reassuring to Prowl. “He won’t be up to being on his feet the whole day or staying for the rest of the festivities afterward, but he’ll be fine for the duration of the Ceremony. And the Champion and his Chosen don’t usually stay long past that anyway.” The giddy happiness was back in his field. “They usually have…other priorities.”

“My priority is his health,” Prowl said firmly. “I will not allow anything to impede his recovery.”

“Including Jazz himself, I hope,” a tired but serious sounding voice added. First Aid straightened as Ratchet entered the room. “He seems like the type to push himself and try to do too much, too soon. Were you planning on keeping an optic on him?”

Prowl nodded. “That was my intent, though I am sure I can count on his friends to assist in looking after him when I am not available.”

“Why would you not be available?” First Aid asked, sounding offended by the very notion.

“My recovery will be shorter than his, and I will have to return to work once my mandated medical leave is over,” Prowl explained. “I am not particularly thrilled at the prospect. After everything that has happened, it will be an even more uncomfortable environment than it already was.”

“Don’t you have time off you can take? I remember Barricade saying you had time accrued.”

“Time that he would have been more than happy to force me to take if Lockdown had won,” Prowl clarified, a small tremor in his doorwings the only hint of his disgust at the thought. “He is not, however, likely to approve a request for leave so that I can spend time with Jazz.”

Ratchet looked like he was about to say something, but First Aid was already talking again, his voice rising with his temper. “Well I’m giving you as many days as I can possibly justify then! I don’t think you should be going back to work with him at all. It’s more than not comfortable, it’s not safe!”

“Whuz not safe?” Jazz’s words were slurred as he struggled to sit up, awakened by the conversation.

There was a sharp metallic ringing sound as Ratchet smacked his hand against First Aid’s shoulder reprimandingly. “Now look what you’ve done,” he said sternly. “Jazz needs his rest, so how about you come with me and stop disturbing him and we can have a nice discussion about using indoor voices in the recovery ward, hmm?”

Prowl could tell the two had begun a separate conversation over a private line but ignored them both, focusing his attention on Jazz. “First Aid is concerned about my returning to the precinct to work with Barricade. I assure you, I will not be doing so without taking reasonable precautions. However, I am not going to allow this situation to keep me from my job.”

Jazz smiled. “Wouldn’t recognize you if you did,” he said. “We’re safe here though, right?”

“Yes.” Prowl smiled back. “You should rest again. We do not have to be anywhere until tomorrow.”

“An’ that tomorrow is pretty important.” Jazz pulled his hand back so that he could shuffle into a sitting position on the berth rather than settling back down again. “I’m looking forward to it, even if I am a little nervous.”

“Nervous? What could you have to be nervous about?” Prowl was nervous himself, but he hadn’t expected Jazz would be feeling the same. After all, his entire job was about being the center of attention in front of a crowd, and he said as much. “I thought you were accustomed to such things?”

“To puttin’ on a show, sure,” Jazz agreed easily. “I don’t have a problem performin’ for an audience. But tomorrow ain’t gonna be a front. It’ll be me, tellin’ all of Cybertron honestly how much you mean to me.” He ducked his helm almost shyly. “That’s kinda private, you know? I mean, I’ve dreamed of this since…yeah, you probably don’t wanna know, but now that it’s about to happen? Yeah, I’m nervous. Besides, I know you don’t like that sort of fuss bein’ made outta you,” he added, almost apologetically.

Prowl’s spark swelled in its chamber. No matter how romantic a gesture the Champion’s Choice was – and it really, truly was; he still felt overwhelmed by the knowledge that Jazz really intended to announce his name – it meant even more that he was concerned about Prowl’s comfort with it. “Don’t be nervous on my account,” he reassured him. “I will just have to get used to having a little more public spectacle in my life, and I’m not referring only to the Ceremony tomorrow.” _Between your career and a high profile corruption case at the precinct, increased media attention will be unavoidable, in fact._

“And you’re really all right with that?” Jazz asked, uncertain.

“Yes,” Prowl told him, meaning it. “I…have wanted this for a long time, too.”

Jazz beamed at him, confidence restored. “You can’t even imagine how amazing it is to hear that.”

 _Probably as amazing as it feels for me to hear it from you,_ Prowl thought. It must have shown on his face even though he said nothing out loud, because Jazz’s smile softened and he reached out with his hand again. Prowl took it without hesitation.

“Ep, ep, ep, there’s been enough of that for one day!” Ratchet scolded, coming over to glare at them both as First Aid stood looking thoroughly chastised by the door. “I meant it when I said Jazz needs his rest, and a little more recharge wouldn’t hurt you either!”

Prowl was about to ask if he could stay by him just until Jazz fell asleep again when the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall made all of them pause. Their tread was even, precise, and _loud_ , almost covering the much quieter, more familiar steps accompanying them entirely. First Aid peered out into the hall and then jumped away from the door as though it had burned him. “Sweet Primus, he actually did it! It’s Bluestreak,” he squeaked out. “And _Ultra Magnus!_ "

It was all Prowl could do to keep from falling over. _That’s who he went to on the Festival Committee?! How– that’s–_ He felt Jazz sit forward on the berth and raise his arm to steady him as he struggled to complete a thought. _He can’t really be here to talk to me_ already, _can he?_

Ratchet, meanwhile, was less than impressed. “I don’t care if it’s the Prime himself! These two have had a long enough day and they need their rest and whatever that mech wants can slagging well keep till tomorrow!” He strode purposefully over to the door. “Get Prowl back in his berth while I inform them that visiting hours are over!” He made a point of firmly shutting the door behind him as he left. The barrier did little to muffle his words or disguise the fact that Ratchet was doing very little to curb them.

“Mech’s got some struts, talkin’ to Ultra Magnus like that,” Jazz said, both shock and admiration in his voice. “Don’t think I’d care to go up against either one of ‘em.”

“I’ll vote for not wanting to argue with Ratchet,” First Aid agreed quickly. “And on that note, let’s get you back in your berth. He’ll turn on us once he runs them off if you’re still over here.”

Prowl allowed First Aid to help him stand, still stunned as the deep, reverberating voice of one of the most recognizable and respected mechs in law enforcement on all of Cybertron told Ratchet in no uncertain terms that he was here on a matter of extreme urgency and that he needed to speak with both patients at once.

“You don’t argue with Ultra Magnus, either,” he stammered out as First Aid assisted him in getting settled on his berth. “I can’t believe he would take this on personally, and so quickly! Surely he has more important matters to attend to!”

“What Barricade and Lockdown did is pretty important, Prowl,” Jazz said. “And I’m not just sayin’ that because it hurt you. Ultra Magnus is on the Committee, right?”

“Yes,” Prowl confirmed. “And you were hurt worse than I was.”

“Debatable, but not the point right now. Actually, none of that’s the point right now – who cares how or why he’s here, as long as he’s here to help?”

“And not a moment too soon,” First Aid said, his visor flaring briefly. “Streetwise just told me that Barricade’s left the precinct. He knows where you are, and he’s on his way here.” Prowl froze and saw Jazz tense as well. “I need to go tell the others.”

First Aid pushed Prowl’s berth closer to Jazz so they were at least in range of each other’s fields and quickly crossed the room. “Don’t worry, there’s no way he’s getting past everyone out there. What you said earlier was true, Prowl – you are safe here.”

He cracked open the door and slipped out, leaving the two black and white mechs alone in the room, silent and completely unable to follow Ratchet’s order to recharge.

***

It wasn’t as simple as stepping out into the hall and blurting out the news, however. First Aid’s appearance went unnoticed by the two titans engaged in verbal warfare and he knew that he would have to wait for them to pause for ammunition before trying to interject. Bluestreak saw him though, and waved him over. First Aid ducked around Ratchet to join him against the other wall.

“I don’t care if you have a signed and sealed search warrant, no one is disturbing those two until they’ve had a chance to rest and recover!” Ratchet was saying, his voice hard and final.

Ultra Magnus, towering imposingly over everyone in the hall, either wasn’t taking the hint or was deliberately ignoring it. “The report I received has dire implications and must be dealt with immediately. If the allegations prove to be correct, there are charges that will need to be leveled at some very established mechs. The sooner we can begin moving on this, the better.”

Bluestreak leaned over to whisper to First Aid. “He just appeared in the lobby, I sent the report with the map and my suspicions marked for his attention as soon as I finished submitting the stalking case to Internal Affairs, but I thought it would at least have to pass a secretary before getting to him and we wouldn’t hear anything back until tomorrow at the earliest. I got a message from the Committee that they’d received what I sent them and that someone would be sent to investigate, but I honestly thought it was just a form response and they’d send more details later until he came walking through the door and asked the room at large if there was a mech named Bluestreak on the premises!”

The large blue and red mech’s shoulder stacks were almost brushing the ceiling, but the much smaller ambulance wasn’t the least bit intimidated. “My patients, my rules – if I say they’re in no condition to handle an interrogation, they’re in no condition to handle an interrogation! Unless a mech’s life is at stake and the only way to save him is for you to talk to them _right now_ , then you can wait until tomorrow when they’re allowed visitors. You don’t have the authority to challenge _me_ over _patient care_.”

“My authority as the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord overrides such considerations in cases of this nature,” came the rebuttal, and First Aid could practically hear as he began cueing up sections and paragraphs to begin citing.

“Did you have to tell him where they were?” First Aid asked.

“Could _you_ have managed not to tell him?” Bluestreak sounded doubtful, and First Aid couldn’t really argue. As much as he liked to think he could have, Ultra Magnus had the same no-nonsense, commanding presence that Ratchet did. He couldn’t blame Bluestreak for caving under the circumstances.

Still, if Ratchet was going to argue that the patients needed rest, they weren’t going to get any with this going on right outside their door. Even more importantly, he didn’t want them to all be congregated right outside the room when Barricade made his appearance. Prowl did not need that stress, and while Ratchet had claimed them both as his patients to talk down Ultra Magnus, Prowl was First Aid’s responsibility and he wasn’t going to let his words to him be a lie.

Spurred on by that thought and by the less than admirable desire to outdo Bluestreak, First Aid stepped forward. “Excuse me!” He said, hoping that Ratchet wouldn’t pounce on him before he got a chance to finish. “If you’re going to continue this discussion, you need to take it somewhere else. This is the recovery ward and raised voices are not permitted.” He saw Ratchet’s optics darken dangerously as he cited the same regulation he’d just recently broken himself and plowed ahead quickly with the rest. “Also, I’ve just been informed that Captain Barricade is currently making his way here.”

That drew them up short. “Well why didn’t you say so?” Ratchet grumbled. “Come on, Ultra Magnus. I’m certainly not letting Barricade in to see them, any more than I’m allowing you. Why don’t you start with him instead?”

“I do not have sufficient evidence at this time to take him into custody,” Ultra Magnus said. “However, as one of the principal subjects of this investigation, I cannot allow him to make contact with the witnesses.”

“Explaining that to him while escorting him someplace far away sounds like it would accomplish that,” Ratchet pointed out, gesturing firmly for the enormous mech to start walking. “It even has the added benefit of getting you both out from under my feet and away from my patients.”

“I will still need to speak with them as soon as possible,” Ultra Magnus said, a disapproving frown on his face as he moved to head back to the lobby.

“I’ll be sure to let you know when that is,” Ratchet said, somehow managing to make the promise sound like a threat. “Don’t bother checking in every hour. I’ll call you.”

First Aid shared a look with Bluestreak before taking off after Ratchet and Ultra Magnus, leaving the sniper to guard the door. They all stood silently in the lobby once they arrived, and Barricade didn’t keep them waiting long. He stomped angrily inside before stopping abruptly at the sight of his welcoming committee.

“Praxian Enforcer Captain Barricade,” Ultra Magnus greeted him formally. “My name is Ultra Magnus. Serious accusations have been made concerning the acquisition of illegal knowledge of the racecourse of the Challenge of Adaptus from your office by one of the participants. I cannot allow you to make contact with the other parties involved in the case until an investigation has been completed. Please allow me to escort you off the premises.”

Irritation flashed across Barricade’s features before they smoothed into a calm, professional mask. If he hadn’t been looking for it First Aid would never have seen it; he hoped Ultra Magnus hadn’t missed it. “Am I being accused of something, sir?” he asked, his voice perfectly even.

“At this time you are merely being asked to observe regulations and to cooperate with the investigation.” Ultra Magnus stepped forward. “Since the other witnesses are currently unavailable for questioning due to their injuries, I would like to begin with you.”

“Of course,” Barricade agreed amicably, though First Aid thought he heard the tiniest growl of his engine when the Enforcer’s optics strayed behind Ultra Magnus and landed on him. “I just came from the precinct to check on one of my officers who was taken in to medical this morning; may I be permitted to see him before we go?”

“Enforcer Prowl is the only officer currently checked in at this facility,” Ratchet said. “Was that who you were hoping to “check on”?” The air quotes were perfectly audible in his speech and Ultra Magnus gave him a disapproving look.

Barricade ignored the sarcasm and continued the innocent act. “Yes, he is. I never got an update on his condition and was beginning to get concerned.”

First Aid had to fight the urge to yell and call him a liar as he spoke up. “Prowl’s condition was serious enough that I felt he needed to be admitted for further treatment and removed from active duty, even light duty, for the next several days. I cannot discuss the particulars of his condition with you, but I will forward the necessary documentation for his medical leave to your office.”

“Thank you,” Barricade said, almost but not quite managing to sound genuine. “I would still like to see him before we go, if it’s possible.”

“It isn’t.” Ratchet crossed his arms in front of him. “Visiting hours are over.”

“Well then,” Barricade said. “I’ll just have to come by tomorrow.”

“I am afraid that as one of the other parties I mentioned, you are not currently permitted to contact Enforcer Prowl,” Ultra Magnus informed him as though he didn’t already know. “Please also refrain from attempting to communicate with the newest Champion, Jazz or the bounty hunter, Lockdown.”

The captain’s optics narrowed, but he didn’t comment on the restriction. “In that case, I am eager to see this investigation resolved,” he said instead. “I would like to be able to work with Prowl when he is cleared to return.”

Ultra Magnus ushered him out with a final, “Please inform me if anything changes. You have my frequency,” to Ratchet. Together they stepped outside and transformed, driving away back toward the precinct. First Aid sent a quick message to his brother, warning him of the impending arrival and advising him to make himself scarce. Streetwise sounded grateful.

He didn’t realize how tense he’d been until he felt himself sagging back against the wall and saw Ratchet looking at him critically. “I’m fine!” he said hurriedly. “Just a little overwhelmed, that’s all. Ultra Magnus is kind of intimidating.”

“I know,” Ratchet said, his dour expression finally easing up enough to smile just a little. “But he’s just a mech doing his job, the same way we were doing ours.” He turned to head back to the recovery ward. “You did well.”

First Aid shook himself and pushed away from the wall to follow his mentor. “Thanks, Ratchet. Do you…do you think it’s enough to make up for the mistake I made before?”

Ratchet stopped walking but kept facing forward. First Aid slowed and stopped behind him. “The best way you can make up for that mistake," Ratchet finally said after a long pause, “is by never making it again. You learned something valuable from this. And I know,” he said, forestalling First Aid’s protests, “that you feel guilty that Prowl paid the price for that lesson. The truth is, the price can be a lot higher. Your mistake didn’t cost anyone their lives. This time.”

At last he looked back at First Aid, his optics tired and wise but compassionate. “When that day comes, remember this. Remember how you feel right now: motivated, not defeated.” First Aid felt one of his hands come to rest on his shoulder. “You’re already a good medic, First Aid. Someday, you’re going to be a great one.”

First Aid trailed in his wake as they started walking again, both humbled and proud. Once again, he was incredibly grateful to have Ratchet as his teacher.

Bluestreak was still guarding the door when they reached it, alert and intent. Ratchet waved him aside and went in to check on the room’s occupants, who were both, quite predictably, still wide awake. First Aid gave him a thumbs-up. “Barricade left with Ultra Magnus,” he told him, even as he heard Ratchet telling Prowl and Jazz the same. “He didn’t arrest him yet, though.”

“Hopefully that’s only a matter of time,” Bluestreak replied. “He’s going to do his best to get out of as much of it as he can, but I don’t think he’ll be able to duck all of it even if he tries to pin everything on Lockdown, there’s too much he did himself and you know Lockdown’s going to try to do the same and blame everything on him.”

“They can blame each other to their spark’s content,” First Aid said. “Either way it means Prowl can go back to work safely, though I’m still giving him as many days off as I can.”

“And I’m still going to encourage him to take some of his vacation time. Barricade won’t be able to refuse it if he’s trying to prove that he doesn’t have a vendetta against him after all, and I know he’ll be happier if he can spend more time with Jazz, especially while he’s still recovering.” He looked in at them and grinned as this time Ratchet pushed the two berths together so they could reach out to each other. “I really hope it works between them. Jazz is good for Prowl.”

First Aid nodded enthusiastically. “And Prowl is good for Jazz! Anyone can see that just watching the two of them together! I’m really happy for them!”

Whatever derogatory comment the sardonic grin on Bluestreak’s face was a prelude to, Ratchet beat him to it. “And anyone can tell you’re a hopeless romantic watching you,” he said as he rejoined them. “This is exactly why the nurses call you a fanbot.”

Stung, First Aid let out an indignant huff of his vents. “I am not a fanbot,” he denied. “I just like it when couples are happy together. There’s nothing wrong with saying that!”

“Enthusiastically,” Bluestreak added. “Effusively. Obnox –“

“Fine, yes, thank you,” First Aid cut him off. “Maybe I do let myself get a little bit carried away sometimes, but that doesn’t make me a fanbot.”

Bluestreak held up his hands. “Okay, if you say so.”

“I do say so!”

“Well I say, that’s enough,” Ratchet said, ending the discussion. “If either of you disturbs them while they’re _finally_ resting, you will be very, _very_ sorry.” First Aid snuck one last peek as Ratchet shut the door, squashing down his glee at the sight of the two mechs curled up facing each other on their separate berths, hands once again intertwined between them and their helms just touching, Prowl’s chevron resting against the ridge along the top of Jazz’s helm.

Ratchet herded them both away once the door was closed. “Now, the sun may have set, but we still have work to do. Bluestreak, Prowl wanted me to ask you to check in with the other senior officers and see how badly disorganized things are, and if Ultra Magnus has questions after he’s done with Barricade, I’m siccing him on you. Prowl and Jazz and even Lockdown aren’t fit to handle an inquisition right now.  First Aid, I need you to see how things are going at the stadium and find out if that last critical patient has stabilized enough to bring in.” He started up the hall back towards the surgical suite. “I’m going to put together a kit in case I still need to go back out there to him instead.”

“You got it,” First Aid promised, waving goodbye to Bluestreak as he took off to give Ambulon a call.

***

At the stadium, Ambulon was finishing his rounds of the medical tent. He was pleased that the flyer had managed to stabilize; good news for the mech’s frantic relations. An incoming call alert appeared on his HUD as he pulled back the curtain to check on Lockdown again, but he didn’t answer it. He was too busy staring in disbelief at the empty berth where the bounty hunter, still partially paralyzed by the stasis field less than an hour ago, used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know saying these things can jinx things, but I'm _pretty_ sure that the next chapter is the last and final chapter of the story. It was looking for a little while like this would be the last chapter, but then it expanded enough to need to be split into two, and that cliffhanger was just too good to pass up! *ducks flying tomatoes*
> 
> ALSO, FANART ALERT!!! I've put the links in the chapters each of these pieces belong to, but I'm putting them here also because there is fanart (PLURAL! OMG!!) for this story and I am just so happy, this is amazing and I love them both to bits and I have to share with everyone who hasn't seen them yet!
> 
> [Chaoswolf12](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaoswolf12/pseuds/Chaoswolf12) drew a fantastic rendition of the final scene with Jazz and Lockdown from ch9 (and the side story [Losing It All](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5215607)) [here](http://chaoswolf12.tumblr.com/post/133646935258/ever-since-i-read-this-scene-in-winner-takes-all), 
> 
> aaaaand
> 
> [glitzbot](http://glitzbot.tumblr.com/) on tumblr illustrated Prowl and Jazz together in medical from ch10 [here](http://glitzbot.tumblr.com/post/131537952518/this-is-a-scene-from-rizobacts-awesome-fic-winner).
> 
> <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long journey, but in the end, everyone gets what they deserve; both the bad, and, even more importantly, the good.

Jazz felt a strange sense of detachment for a moment as he climbed down from Ratchet’s alt mode. The medic transformed and followed him over to the padded bench in the hidden space beneath the raised Festival podium. Part of him was sure he was still in recharge, that any minute now he would wake up and find that he was just dreaming he was about to be honored as Adaptus’ Champion after running what felt like Unicron’s own gauntlet more than a Challenge. If it weren’t for how much he still ached right now, he probably could have convinced himself of it, too.

Those aches, Ratchet had promised him, would linger but slowly improve over the next several days. Jazz wished they were gone already as he sat down, biting back a grimace as leaned back on his injured hands without thinking. At least standing for the ceremony would be easy, though he was grateful that Ratchet had transported him here rather than allowing him to drive himself. That idea had been shot down so fast by both Ratchet and Prowl it had made Jazz’s head spin, and he was glad now that he hadn’t tried to argue.

“What’s wrong?” Ratchet asked sharply, clearly not missing his discomfort. “I told you that you could have postponed another day. I believe I even advised you to do just that, so you’d have a little bit more endurance and be in less pain,” he said pointedly. “I’m not above taking you right back to the hospital and making everyone wait until tomorrow.”

“No way,” Jazz told him, bringing his thoughts into focus. “I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Chances of what, Prowl changing his mind?” Ratchet snorted. “That’s not very likely.”

“Of Lockdown messing this up,” Jazz said. “No sign of him on the way in?”

Ratchet sighed. “No, and that’s another reason you should have waited, so they could find him first.”

Jazz shook his helm. “Waiting’d just let him get repaired and come up with some big evil payback scheme.” He didn’t tell Ratchet what Prowl had told him when they’d found out about the bounty hunter’s disappearance – that if he hadn’t left Praxus entirely, they were likely to have to endure some attempt at revenge no matter when they went ahead with the ceremony. The only difference was the more time they gave him, the better prepared he would be and the more damage he was likely to cause.

Prowl, of course, was convinced that the biggest threat was to Jazz, and was bent on doing everything he could to minimize that risk. Jazz hadn’t seen him since just after they’d woken up together, and oh, how wonderful that had been! Having Prowl’s face be the first thing he saw as he powered up his visor was an experience Jazz wanted many, many repeats of. He had been content just to lie there, just being together until First Aid had come in and announced that Ultra Magnus had requested to speak with Prowl as soon as possible. Prowl had agreed to meet with him in one of the hospital conference rooms, and had asked how soon he could arrive.

It had surprised neither of them when First Aid had replied, “He’s already here.” What had come as a shock was the news that Lockdown had vanished without a trace the night before and that the reason Ultra Magnus needed to talk to Prowl was to discuss Lockdown’s intentions and to arrange additional security for the midday ceremony. Prowl had gone immediately, leaving Jazz with nothing to do but wait and worry, though he’d kept him apprised of any updates and the plans being made via comms. throughout the morning.

They’d last spoken just before Prowl had left for the stadium ahead of them, and Jazz had thought he would be waiting for them when they arrived. “How come Prowl isn’t here?” he asked, trying not to sound too concerned. Prowl might have been certain that Lockdown would be coming after him, but Jazz was afraid the maniac would be targeting Prowl as well. “He did make it okay, didn’t he?”

“He’s here,” Ratchet confirmed. “He’s waiting with the Primal Guard outside so he’ll be right there when you call him up. The less time you’re on your feet and out in the open, the better.”

That meant that Prowl was protected, and knowing that let Jazz relax again. He’d insisted that someone tell Ultra Magnus that Prowl was at risk too, but he hadn’t been sure the message had gotten through or that anything had been done about it. “I’m all for that,” was all he said, however.

One of the mechs from the Guard chose that moment to appear at the entrance and motion Ratchet over. They spoke very quietly and Jazz couldn’t hear what they were saying from where he was sitting, but the other red and white mech seemed calm and in good spirits, which was reassuring. Ratchet clearly knew him personally by the way the other seemed to be teasing him, and watching them reminded Jazz of his friends.

 _BB’ll probably say it’s not fair, the ceremony bein’ cut short and us rushed off after,_ he thought. _A day ago I might’ve agreed with her, but right now I’d rather just have more time alone with Prowl. Besides, even though I’m lookin’ forward to makin’ it official, this isn’t the ceremony that really matters to me._ That one would come in the future, when the courtship they would begin today culminated, hopefully, in a full bonding ceremony. _Blaster’ll organize such a party when that day comes._

 _Course, I’ll probably have some work to do convincing ‘em they didn’t almost get me killed makin’ me sign up._ Jazz almost laughed out loud imagining how that conversation would probably go. None of them had had any idea how dangerous Lockdown truly was, but that wouldn’t stop Blaster and Beatbox from blaming themselves for his injuries and going completely over the top apologizing while Switchstep would just blame Jazz for being an idiot to hide how worried he’d been. _I’m so lucky to have them._ He fully intended to overwhelm them with thanks for their encouragement and support and not let them blame themselves as soon as they got a chance to talk again.

Jazz saw Ratchet give an exasperated sigh as the guardsmech departed with a cheeky grin, and he smiled too as the medic turned back to him with a sour expression. “What was that about?” he asked him.

“Nothing,” Ratchet said flatly. “I swear, half the things that mech says, he does just to annoy me.” He walked up to Jazz and helped him to his feet. “Come on, he said it’s time for you to make your grand entrance. Once you’re up there, the Prime will go through a few ritual formalities and make another speech to the crowd, then he’ll address you directly,” he explained unnecessarily. “Just stand there, don’t fidget, and pay attention.” His tone implied that he wasn’t entirely sure Jazz could manage that, but Jazz didn’t take offense.

“I know what I’m supposed to do,” he said playfully. “Don’t zone out or keel over. Got it.”

He left the scathing look that earned him behind as he stepped out into the sun, the previously muted noise of the crowd exploding around him as he emerged. He smiled and waved through the brief painful surge of feedback the sudden roar caused in his damaged audial, careful to stay behind the line of guards as he made his way around the podium. He walked slowly and confidently, effectively masking the stiffness in his one leg as he played to the crowd like fans at a concert.

He didn’t expect to see Prowl, though of course he looked for him anyway. _He’s probably right up by the podium around the other side_ , he reasoned. He did, however, spot his band mates near the front as he began making his way up the steps and got enough height to see better over some of the taller members of the crowd. Beatbox was practically vibrating out of Switchstep's arms as he held onto her while Blaster grinned and signaled, “Showtime!” Jazz's stage smile gave way to a genuine one, and he waved a confirmation, mouthing “Thank you!” back at each of them.

At the top of the stairs, Jazz finally turned away from the crowd and for the first time actually looked at the mechs waiting there. For a second it seemed as though the world around him faded away as he looked up at the Prime, unable to be anything but awed by his presence. The large blue and red mech projected a serenity that was impossible not to be affected by, and at first it was so overwhelming that Jazz didn’t even notice the others standing around him.

The Prime seemed to be expecting that reaction however, and he smiled encouragingly, then winked. It went by so fast that Jazz almost wasn’t sure he’d seen it, but for the humor twinkling in those endless blue optics. The spell broken, Jazz grinned back at him before taking in the rest of the gathered assemblage.

To his left, the Prime’s right, stood the Prime's consort. Taller and more physically imposing than the Prime himself, the large warrior was Mortilus' newest Champion, having won the Challenge at the last Festival in Kaon to claim the spark of the spiritual leader of all of Cybertron for his bondmate. He nodded slightly to Jazz, acknowledging a multitude of things with that one small gesture before returning his gaze to their surroundings with a wary alertness that Jazz found as reassuring as the Prime’s calm composure.

On Jazz’s right stood Ultra Magnus, along with a mech he didn’t recognize with Enforcer markings who must be standing in for Barricade. That had been one of the more pleasant pieces of news they’d received that day; the captain wasn’t under formal arrest yet, but he had already been barred from the Festival site as a consequence of his involvement with what had proven to be an illegal map of the racecourse. Prowl had related that Ultra Magnus was already pushing for his suspension at the precinct for the duration of the investigation, which had made Jazz fiercely happy. _He deserves more than that,_ Jazz thought, a _nd he’ll get away with more than he should. But as long as they get him away from Prowl for good, I’ll be happy._

There were more guards on the podium itself as well as around its base, a line of them separating the gathered officials and dignitaries from around Cybertron from center stage. Ratchet was standing to one side behind that line, nearby in case he was needed. He gave Jazz a look that said he had better not be _or else_ , and Jazz fought down the urge to snap to attention and salute him before returning his attention to the Prime.

This time he noticed a touch of curiosity and anticipation from the mech that he hadn’t picked up on before. _Did they not tell him about Prowl?_ Jazz wondered. It was an intriguing thought, that the Prime might not already know who he intended to call and that he might be genuinely interested in hearing Jazz’s Choice, not just in being there to go through the motions and officiate.

The crowd fell silent as he raised his hands, and it was clear the instant he began speaking that the Prime really was personally invested in every word he said. Jazz let the sonorous baritone roll over him, not taking in the words themselves so much as the feelings that he put behind them – courage, triumph, and love. It was beautiful and powerful, and Jazz let himself become lost in the moment.

"Jazz.” The sound of his name brought his awareness back, and he realized he had almost missed his cue. A quick glance back at Ratchet showed that he’d noticed; he’d probably be hearing about that lapse later. The Prime’s smile was knowing too, but he continued as though nothing had happened. “You have proven yourself in the Challenge before the gods and all of Cybertron to win Adaptus’ favor as His Champion. Now, step forward and receive His blessing.”

A single step forward was all that was required, and Jazz took it. The Prime’s hands came to rest on his shoulders, more gently than he would have believed a frame so large was capable of being, and Jazz stood still beneath them, unsure what to expect. Many mechs thought the blessing was nothing but words, an empty formula. Jazz had always believed it was more than that, even though in Festivals past he had never seen any outward sign that it was anything other than a pause in the ceremony.

Now, standing beneath that benevolent gaze, he felt an indescribable energy begin to gather around them. It built and emanated from the Prime, growing brighter and brighter, consuming him for an instant in light that he realized no one else could see. Jazz felt simultaneously weakened and strengthened by it as it burst outward, passing into and through him like a rush of wind.

Then it was over. The Prime lowered his hands and spoke again like he was talking to a friend. “Champion Jazz,” he said. “As Adaptus has Chosen and favored you, is there a spark that you would Choose as yours, to share in His blessing?"

“There is one,” Jazz said, daring to improvise on the traditional response, “that I would court to be mine.” His voice rang out clearly as he continued. “And if, and the end of a year _he_ chooses _me_ , I would gladly share everything – my love, my life, and my spark – with Prowl.”

The stands burst into cheers and the Prime smiled radiantly at him. Jazz hesitated, a momentary flash of irrational fear holding him in place. _What if he isn’t there when I turn around?_ But then he saw the Prime chuckle and raise his hand to point delicately behind him. Jazz followed his finger and looked over his shoulder, and there he was. Prowl stood at the base of the steps, polished and gleaming and beautiful, that small smile brighter than the Prime’s.

“Prowl,” he called out to him, knowing he wouldn’t hear him over the crowd but unable to help himself as he turned fully. “I –” Jazz broke off as suddenly a tall figure separated from the front of crowd, pulling off and throwing aside a long tan cape covering scored black and green plating. The mech charged forward, knocking aside the guard that moved to block him with a swift blow to the helm from a heavy metal hook, red optics blazing with fury as he rushed up behind Prowl. “Look out!” Jazz shouted.

His words were lost as the cheers around them turned to cries of alarm, but Prowl saw the panic on his face and realization dawned on his features. He started to pivot on the steps but didn’t make it before Lockdown was there, that hook coming around as his arm snaked around Prowl’s waist under his bumper to pin his arms at his sides and yank him backwards to bring his other arm up to rest the end of his built-in plasma blaster beneath Prowl’s jaw, forcing his helm up and back.

“NOBODY MOVE!” he roared, and miraculously the spectators’ frightened cries fell largely silent. Jazz froze in place, his thoughts a chaotic jumble. “I see even one of those guards reach for a weapon, or one of you move like you’re going to come down here, and I shoot him.” He pulled Prowl tight against him, lifting the Praxian’s feet off the ground. “And before you start getting any bright ideas about using a sniper, think good and hard about whether or not you want the explosives I’m carrying going off so close to the Prime! Not to mention all these innocent bystanders,” he added viciously. “They’re wired to blow if I take any damage.”

“Lockdown, put down your weapons immediately,” Ultra Magnus said firmly, though he did not move so much as an inch from where he stood.

“Not possible, sorry,” Lockdown replied, jerking his helm down at his arm. “It’s attached. You understand.” The high-pitched whine of the blaster powering up filled the air as the silver titan beside the Prime shifted. Jazz felt sickened by the sound, but Prowl didn’t even flinch. “Don’t,” Lockdown warned. “I’d really rather not slag my partner, but I will, if you force me to.”

“I am not your partner,” Prowl said, ignoring the heat and glow of the gun. “I will never be your partner. Let me go.”

Lockdown laughed, the deep sound mingling with the hum of the blaster ominously. “Oh, Prowl. Haven’t you heard the phrase, “never say never?” You really shouldn’t speak in absolutes.”

“Never,” Prowl repeated tersely, his doorwings twitching where they were sandwiched between their frames.

“Please!” The word burst desperately from Jazz’s vocalizer, drawing Lockdown’s attention. Those burning optics locked onto him and he felt himself beginning to shake, more frightened than he’d been during the entire course of the Challenge. “Please, don’t hurt him!”

“Or what?” Lockdown challenged. “You’re out of tricks, and you’ve used up all your luck.” He leaned down to speak against the side of Prowl’s helm, pretending to ignore Jazz even as he continued to stare up at him hatefully. “He can’t save you this time. What did you even see in that mech, anyway?”

“Besides skill, dedication, and intelligence?” Prowl asked, doorwings still fluttering feebly against Lockdown’s armor. Jazz felt static building behind his visor, blurring his vision at the edges as Prowl caught his gaze and held it. “Enthusiasm. Talent.”

“A sweet aft and a big mouth,” Lockdown interrupted with a leer. “He’s just a trashy little piece of shareware, Prowl. You can do so much better.”

“Integrity. Compassion.” Prowl continued as though Lockdown hadn’t spoken, turning his helm away from him and toward the blaster in a show of defiance, his face going hard and blank.

“Please,” Jazz repeated, hating himself for being so helpless. He wanted to do something, anything, but Lockdown was right – there was nothing he _could_ do! “Lockdown, please, let him go! Take me instead,” he begged.

“Oh, no,” Lockdown snarled. “I’m not giving up what’s mine. You’re nothing but scrap metal, spare parts. And you think you’re good enough for Prowl?” His engine growled furiously. “Cheating to win some race doesn’t make you worthy of him.”

Jazz’s hands twitched at his sides. “I’m not the one who cheated, Lockdown,” he said angrily, longing once again to punch him. “You did!  And even with you cheating and murdering, I still beat you!”

“Careful now,” Lockdown said, digging the gun into Prowl’s neck. “Do you want his death on your conscience, little mech?”

“Loyalty,” Prowl interjected, the word emerging slightly choked from the pressure Lockdown was exerting but still completely calm and unafraid. “A friend.”

Jazz watched as Lockdown’s expression darkened. “Prowler…” he whispered, sending up a silent prayer. _Primus, Adaptus, anyone! Please! Help him!_

“A partner.”

Lockdown jerked as though he’d been shot, letting out an inarticulate scream as rage flooded from him in waves powerful enough to drop Jazz to his knees. Everything slowed as the crazed mercenary wrenched the blaster away from Prowl to turn it on Jazz, its whine growing louder as his finger tightened on the trigger.

Jazz held his helm high, refusing to look away as he braced himself for the shot.

Then in an instant, everything went from moving at half time to rushing by in fast forward. Prowl suddenly flew into motion, somehow managing enough leverage to throw off Lockdown’s aim. The blast crackled ineffectually into the sky and Prowl took advantage of the recoil to throw Lockdown further off balance, twisting free of his grip and throwing the mech down to the ground in one swift, calculated movement. His foot came down hard on Lockdown’s back as a pair of stasis cuffs materialized almost directly onto the mech’s wrists, their charge forcing the plasma blaster to transform back beneath the hunter’s armor, disabled.

“Lockdown, you are under arrest for assaulting an officer of the law, threatening the safety of the Prime, and the firing of a lethal weapon in a public venue at a civilian,” he said, his tone crisply professional despite the satisfaction glowing deep in his optics. “You are under suspicion of numerous other crimes of varying degrees and are to be taken into custody where a full list of charges will be read to you in addition to your rights. Failure to cooperate or attempts to resist arrest will constitute additional charges,” he finished, his frame language all but daring Lockdown to try it.

Jazz was torn between wishing Lockdown would keep digging himself in deeper and just wanting it all to be over. He felt a large, gentle hand on his arm as the Prime knelt down beside him. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Of course he’s not all right,” Ratchet’s voice snapped as the medic appeared in his peripheral vision. “His systems were already strained before all this nonsense.” He could feel him starting a scan as the towering forms of Ultra Magnus and the Prime’s consort walked past them, the ground vibrating with the weight of their footsteps.

There was a quiet argument going on over his helm, but Jazz didn’t pay any attention to it. All he cared about was the activity at the base of the stairs where Lockdown was laughing as Ultra Magnus took him away. Prowl resolutely did not acknowledge him. He paused just long enough to speak briefly to the silver warrior before starting swiftly up the stairs. “Jazz!”

Jazz was already reaching for him before he was halfway there, struggling to his feet and pulling away from the mechs beside him. He thought for a second they might try to stop him, but they didn’t, and he forgot about them entirely as he and Prowl reached the top of the stairs together.

He wasn’t sure who embraced who first, but the contact broke the dam on his vocalizer. “That was horrible. Please tell me it’s over, I don’t think I can do that again,” he mumbled into Prowl’s plating. “They’re not going to let him escape again, are they?”

“No,” Prowl said confidently. “His knack for escaping stasis won’t help him escape from a guarded cell with constant surveillance. I should have remembered he had a talent for it,” he admitted apologetically. “He escaped from a pair of high-end cuffs when I first met him.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jazz said emphatically, lifting his helm. “I mean it,” he insisted, rapping sharply on Prowl’s arm to get his attention. “You listenin’ to me? Not. Your. Fault.” He reached around to nudge a doorwing up from its drooping position. “Come on, let it go. That’s not what you need to apologize for anyway.”

“If not that, then what?” Prowl asked, confused.

“I thought he was gonna blow us all up when you flipped him like that!” Jazz said. “You owe me an apology for nearly stopping my spark with that stunt!”

Confusion gave way to amusement. “If we’re apologizing for spark attacks, I think you still owe me many times over for what you pulled yesterday,” Prowl teased, then turned serious. “Lockdown would have intercepted any transmission I tried to send, or I would have told both you and Ultra Magnus as soon as I realized he couldn’t have actually blown anything up.”

“Wha – how’s that, he couldn’t have blown anything up?!” Jazz exclaimed.

“He lied,” Prowl said simply. “I scanned him for explosives and there were none; the only weapon he had was the gun. I just had to wait for him to point it away from me to subdue him.”

“You just..Prowler!” Jazz let his helm fall forward with a soft _clang!_ against Prowl. “You knew the second he wasn’t pointing it at you he’d be aimin’ at me,” he said, vents cycling somewhat unevenly.

“And for that,” he said, and there was a catch in his voice too, “I am sorry. If there had been any other way, I swear to you, I would have done it differently. He could have pulled the trigger at any point in that conversation and I would have surely died, but it wasn’t until he tried to shoot you that I was afraid.”

Jazz’s helm came up so fast he almost smacked Prowl in the face, not realizing he had bowed his helm down over him. “Then you know how I felt the whole time he was threatenin’ to shoot you,” he breathed.

They stood clinging to each other, forehelm to forehelm as their fields mingled wordlessly together, an island oblivious to the swirl of activity going on around them. Neither noticed the Guard holding back the crowd, or Ratchet chasing off a cameramech who tried to get in close enough for a sound bite, or the Prime and his consort looking on in silent approval.

Alone in front of millions, Prowl whispered, “Do you…still wish to court me?”

“If you’ll still accept my suit,” Jazz answered, leaning in still closer. He felt Prowl’s hands tighten on him.

“ _Yes!_ ”

The word had scarcely left Prowl’s lips before Jazz was angling his helm to eliminate the space remaining between them completely and closing his mouth over Prowl’s. He felt a shiver run through the frame in his arms as he pressed against him and he moved his lips over Prowl’s gently, not demanding, not even asking, just giving. As Prowl cautiously, almost innocently began returning the kiss, Jazz found he couldn’t contain the soft cry welling up inside him and he trembled as it escaped, muffled against Prowl’s lips.

Those lips remained closed, carefully exploring and pulling Jazz down deeper without ever physically deepening the kiss. It was the sweetest, most chaste kiss he’d had in vorns, and somehow more passionate than any he could recall. Prowl brought his hands up to cup Jazz’s face tenderly right as Jazz reached behind Prowl’s helm with one hand to hold on, to try to anchor himself against the tide of emotions threatening to sweep him away. His other hand alternated restlessly between stroking gently and grasping desperately at the arm beneath it until Prowl dropped one of his hands back down to take it, bringing it up to weave their fingers together in the space between their rapidly spinning sparks.

Jazz could feel Prowl’s amazement, his wonder that this was really happening flooding over him, and he almost laughed into the kiss to recognize the same incredulous disbelief he’d been feeling himself. His lips curved in a smile without breaking their contact as he sent back every reassurance he could that this was real and felt them returned in kind.

Looking up, Jazz watched as Prowl shuttered his optics, slowing even further to cherish each sensation like it was something precious and new. With a thrill that left him feeling both honored and humbled, Jazz realized that this _was_ all new to Prowl, that this was Prowl’s first kiss – and he’d Chosen to share it with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it ends, with the most important prize of all - the one that can't be won: love.
> 
> This has been an amazing journey and experience for me. Thank you to everyone who was along for the ride every week, and to everyone who finds this now that it's complete and enjoys it with the benefit of not having to wait to find out what happens next! I appreciate all of you so, so much, and you've made me so happy to have written and shared this *hugs all around* 
> 
> I'm going to miss this story now that it's over, but I hope to see you around again in the future <3 While this story in particular will not be seeing a sequel, I'm looking forward many other new adventures :)


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